MANGAWHAI'S NO.1 NEWSPAPER
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Council initiative highly commended at prestigious awardsThe Kaipara District Council has been highly commended for its entry ‘Retaining Building Consent Authority Accreditation’ at the recent prestigious Society of Local Government Managers Awards (SOLGM) in Wellington. In the ‘Transforming Service Delivery’ category, the judges spoke about a Council that “used an exciting technological development to move from being close to losing BCA accreditation to a recognised sector leader inside three months.” The Council also had an entry in the category ‘Council-Community Relationships’ which was based on the planning work that has been undertaken with a number of communities across the District. “I think this really shows how far we have come as an organisation,” said acting chief executive Jill McPherson. “Two years ago we would not have had anything to enter. This year we were proud to be able to put up entries for two categories. “This shows that Council is becoming the high performing organisation that the Commissioners want us to be.” The Council, motivated by the potential loss of Building Consent Authority Accreditation, chose a bold transformational solution, changing from a paper-based consenting process to a cloud-based software process. With the help of Selwyn District Council, who had already shown excellence in this area, the Kaipara District Council has been the first to implement the totally cloud-based comprehensive software solution AlphaOne. It did this in just three months. Dr McPherson said the choice had been a bold one and was not without its risks. “If the project had been unsuccessful we would have lost IANZ accreditation and been forced to close down as a Building Control Authority. We were not prepared to let that happen. The team, led by Fran Mikulicic, General Manager Regulatory, was supported by Dave Waetford, Ken Swanepoel, and Duncan McAulay. “We could not have done it on our own. I would like to thank the team at Mangawhai, our customers and Selwyn District Council for helping to make this the successful transformation it has been.” Due to the excellent result of the audit the next assessment would revert to the normal two-year cycle of assessment. “We cannot afford to relax,” said Dr McPherson. “This is an ongoing process and we will continue to strive for excellence to stay at the top of our game.” The winner of the Transforming Service Delivery category was Selwyn District Council for Project Helix. This project also won the Supreme Award. The SOLGM Awards are held annually. This year there were four categories: Joined-up Local Government; Building Organisational Capability, Transforming Service Delivery and Council-Community Relationships. “This shows that Council is becoming the high performing organisation that the Commissioners want us to be.” - Jill McPherson, Kaipara District Council chief executive |