Council begins five-year transformation plan

Councils have proven annoying for residents across the country, but it’s hoped Nelson’s won’t be for too much longer.

“I’m going to put my hand up – sometimes, Nelson City Council probably is frustrating to some customers,” says chief executive Nigel Philpott.

“We can make improvements, and quite significant improvements.”

Nigel has now initiated a council-wide programme that he hoped will transform the organisation, and it’s not meant to cost the ratepayer a cent.

“We should be seen as being a modern, progressive organisation that’s just easy to deal with.”

He says the council has not looked at itself deeply in about a couple of decades, and, since 2010, a couple of earlier reviews failed to implement lasting change – the reason?

“Staff are working at about 110 per cent – always busy, always working, no real time to think and stop.”

To avoid this problem, new staff are being brought on or seconded from their council roles, to allow them to dedicate time to consider how the council operates.
The five-year programme is entirely funded by an internal loan – the first phase will cost about $480,000 – and is hoped to be “easily” repaid over ten years by the efficiencies and productivity gains.

Finding savings now was important as all council costs had “gone through the roof”.

Practically, it’s expected the programme will result in changes for both residents and council staff. The council website is in the process of being improved, more online forms, and a new customer tool is expected to streamline interaction with the council.

“You should be able to go online, and you should be able to see every interaction that you have with the council in one place,” Nigel says.

From there, residents are hoped to be able to check their rates bill or dog licence, track building or resource consent progress, and access their property files, for example.

Nigel also wanted to improve customer service so that “90 per cent” of resident queries could be answered in the first instance and to stop questions bouncing between several different departments.

As for council staff, he says they are “siloed” and more communication is needed between departments.

The number of council’s IT systems – currently about 59 – were hoped to be reduced, while a new programme management office would have oversight of all council functions to ensure value for money by bettering integration and communication across departments. A potential monetary value of the efficiencies and increased productivity hasn’t yet been quantified, but Nigel’s confident savings would be delivered.

“Over the [10-year] period of the [Long-Term Plan], instead of lifting the cost to ratepayers, it’ll actually be reducing the cost to ratepayers.”

It would then be up to elected members as to whether they would “bank” the savings or pick up additional projects.

Key stakeholders like community groups and business leaders have already been engaged, and Nigel says drop-in sessions, surveys, and other avenues were planned to ensure residents got their say.

“We’re designing a council that’s going to put the people of Nelson at the heart of everything that we do, and the only way we could do that is by engaging with the people we deal with.”