Wollondilly Shire Council shows the impact of modern, digital apps.

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 neighboring 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. 

Wollondilly Shire Council used to be a rural community made up largely of mining and farming. It was a different speed and different lifestyle from the big city life of Sydney that was both a haul of a drive and worlds apart all at the same time. But as Sydney continues to grow it is expanding westward towards Wollondilly, making the small community much more accessible to commuters who were looking for a different quality of life. Before long, Wollondilly found itself building more housing, discussing new questions regarding city planning, and supporting more knowledge workers — who typically expect the kind of modern, digital customer experience they receive as a customer of any enterprise-level service. Regardless of the fact that many government organisations have not been able to make the same IT investments because taxpayer funds have to be spent with a different level of scrutiny, business justification, and oversite. 

“Our technology was about 25 years old. It didn’t have the ability to provide the kind of business process and automation we’ve come to expect at standard today. So, the expectations of our customers were going through the roof because we only had the ability to ability to serve people face-to-face or over the phone. Meanwhile, they were used to having an urban council with urban resources,” said Mr. Adcock. “We needed to give people the ability to conduct basic services online.”

Per the aforementioned building inspections work, Mr. Adcock and team launched an app that not only streamlines this process, but also enables employees out in the field with the same functionality they would have in the office. 

Building inspectors launch the app from their mobile device and are presented with their upcoming appointments, along with information like approved plans, related building code requirements, and so on for each site. Inspectors can refer to this information while conducting a site visit as well as add additional notes, attach photos, and more.  

“Before, all of this information would have been printed out by a team of admin people and left in a stack on the person’s desk for them to come in and pick up before they headed out for the day. Each folder would come back with handwritten notes that had to be manually entered into our systems. If handwriting was hard to read or if a form didn’t make it into the manila folder at some point, the inspector would have to go back on site,” said Mr. Adcock.

If a resident wants to book, say, a soccer pitch or tennis court they can visit Wollondilly’s website and browse all kinds of information: venue options, hours of operation, available amenities, and more. Once the customer has made a decision, they can then create / log into their account on WOLL Council (Wollondilly’s online community portal for municipal services), and book accordingly. The results: few forms, faster customer service. 

“Before, customers were asked to fill out an application and email it as a PDF, which would then get assigned for review by our intake desk. Once the application was approved, the customer would receive a quote, and then be able to book the venue. I don't know about you, but if I want to play tennis, it's an urge which comes and goes fairly quickly. I don't usually think about booking a court two weeks in advance,“ said Mr. Adcock.