jeylabs

A survey of Australia and New Zealand councils who attended KPMG’s public sector network’s local government transformation series in May 2019 has found that digital transformation is often ‘skin deep’, only implemented at the front end.

Only 12% of the councils attended said they were highly digital. A quarter of those surveyed said they had minimal automation, disparate systems and high level of manual and paper-based processes. The situation was slightly better at the remaining two thirds although they still reported requirements for manual workarounds and few digitally enabled processes.

“A large number of councils are making great progress, with an increase in those moving swiftly to put transactions online, to ‘digitise’ forms and to change payment methods. However, in many cases this progress is simply being experienced at the front end – the customer-facing end – and not integrated, allowing for transactions to be managed all the way through the organisation to the back office,” KPMG concludes in its survey report.

We believe that many of the Local Government officers and councillors actually want to improve the quality of services offered to their constituency. In order to deliver that though they often face many challenges.

Our approach is to understand first and assist them with overcoming these issues. Funding is one of the major issues for any council unless they are a large metropolitan council with a lot of ratepayers or one that is growing rapidly through residential development.

Since our inception in Feb 2009, jeylabs has been working with many local government agencies. We have also worked with federal and state agencies. Our team regularly attends the events run by Local Government Professionals in Melbourne. We meet many representatives from the local government sector and listen to their views, concerns and ideas.

Typically, Councillors and Officers have different preferences for tackling the problems around service delivery. They are motivated by different needs. So, This puts them at conflict when it comes to decision making or influencing an action.

IT departments at many councils still run as if it is 1980 and exhibit old beliefs that are not in line with the growing cloud economy and the popular apps ecosystems.

Some of the back end systems and investments already made on the so-called Tier 1 proprietary platforms also limit the councils in rapidly delivering high-quality services. Support contracts still tie them to paying high fees to these vendors for making even the minuscule of changes.

Local government is also very risk averse. So, while they talk a lot about Innovation, taking risks and moving forward fast is not something they are used to.

Understanding these and many other related issues within the local government, we have developed a strategy to invest and work closely for the long term success.

Through this viewpoint, We were able to find the right people with an appetite for innovation. This is very encouraging. We currently have a number of ongoing automation projects within local government.

There is also a lot of frustration within a growing number of councils when it comes to dealing with Tier 1 vendors. This created an opportunity for us to break in and provide high-value services at a fraction of the fees usually charged by these vendors. Also being a local service provider puts us in a very good position.

By showing our commitment, flexibility and willingness to work with the councils jeylabs and other similar businesses can win with the local government.

jeylabs is a multi-award winning enterprise grown out of the northern suburbs. The Northern Business Achievement Awards (NBAA) has acknowledged jeylabs with the esteemed “Workplace Diversity Award”.

We also won the Westpac Businesses of the Future award in 2017. We are a proud recipient of many government grants. jeylabs is an LGPro Corporate Partner. We are also GITC Accredited.

We are committed to the success of local government. Our approach is to partner with the sector for mutual success.

We are also assisting the rural councils that often get neglected by the big end of town service providers.

Working with the local government is not child’s play. We take this seriously.

We have been heavily investing in developing tailored solutions such as the Citizen Services to serve the council residents. Our IoT and RPA based Smart City Solutions are received very positively by local government.

If you are a local council interested in learning more and how we can help you innovate on your service delivery, please get in touch via transform@jeylabs.com