Wollondilly Shire Council is a municipality on Sydney’s southwestern urban fringe that is committed to creating opportunities in partnership with the community that enhance quality of life and the environment by managing growth and providing sustainable services and facilities. 

“And there are a couple of things in [the mission statement] that really stand out as of late,” said Simon Adcock, Wollondilly Shire Council’s CIO. “The part about sustainable services; every dollar we spend on paperwork or processes is a dollar that isn’t being spent on actual services for the community that make people’s lives better. Or the part about managing growth; Wollondilly is doubling in size in an ever-increasingly short space of time, which presents a few challenges for us. We have to be able to support that growth without impacting the environment, without the resources of a large city, and without losing the social fabric of who we are as a community.”

In other words, more and more of Wollondilly’s population is expecting the personalised, “small town” customer experience from city services, but with the kind of speed, scope, and scale they might get in neighbouring Sydney. This, combined with the growth in population, means municipal leaders have to do more and serve more using the same resources. Here’s how Mr. Adcock and the team did it.