Digital revolution a chance for councils to engage residents

Apps that tell residents which bin to put out on bin night, portals that allow online payments, and AI-driven functionality that can help automate processes or answer questions all promise a new era of engagement between councils and their residents.  

Datacom Director of Local Government, Peter Nelson, says simple digital tools like an application that allows two-way conversations between councils and residents can improve engagement by providing alternatives to traditional phone and face-to-face communication – options that are increasingly unpopular with many residents. 

“Residents have new demands for digital portals, apps and services, like those offered by banks, retailers and government departments,” says Peter. 

“They want to be able to make payments online, have their enquiries answered and applications such as building permits processed quickly. They want to be able to look at an app to know the right bin to put out or where to avoid roadworks.”  

Artificial Intelligence (AI) also has a growing role to play, bringing together information from councils’ complex systems to help staff respond quickly, accurately and in plain English to enquiries and service requests. 

“Ultimately, this means staff can focus on providing richer support for constituents and dealing with more complex inquiries,” Peter says. “AI’s ability to serve up the right information at the right time to both citizens and council staff has huge potential.” 

The digital revolution is already paying dividends for councils. 

Porirua City Council, a municipality of 62,000 people in the Wellington metropolitan area on New Zealand’s North Island, scored a 95.3% satisfaction rating in the 2023 National Local Government Customer Experience Benchmark survey placing first across all 80 councils that took part after improving its customer interactions with a new Datascape customer relationship management (CRM) system. 

Wattle Range Council in South Australia also improved its relationship with suppliers and the efficiency of its enquiries process after providing staff with real-time visibility of financial data by adopting Datascape Financials – paired with Power BI for analytics. 

“On a day-to-day basis it means processing of invoices and payments are happening much faster which has improved relationships with suppliers,” says Peter. 

“Each customer enquiry or request is tracked and followed-up and assigned to the right council team member so that the question gets answered, the service gets delivered or the job gets done. The system also allows the customer team to give people timely updates.” 

The Singapore government has embraced AI in its digitization push, introducing an ‘Ask Jamie’ online virtual assistant that answers questions and provides residents quick and direct answers, so staff can focus time and resources on more advanced tasks 

It uses natural language processing to respond with an appropriate answer and can be trained to ask follow-up questions for more complex enquiries.  

The City of Sydney is pioneering the use of AI in the review process for Complying Development Certificates, with e-Planning tools quickly identifying non-compliant application segments and offering immediate feedback to applicants. This means applications promptly receive a preliminary assessment, resulting in streamlined submissions and boosted efficiency for the planning department. 

Other councils are using AI to assess their road networks in real time by fitting public transport and council vehicles with advanced sensors and cameras. Proactivity scheduling preventative maintenance both enhances public safety and saves money. 

This year, Datacom will release a new generation of its Datascape mobile field worker solution which will further enable council staff to perform remote tasks like inspecting buildings, dealing with roaming dogs or issuing parking tickets.  

Meanwhile, Datascape’s Antenno app allows residents to select topics of specific interest to them or opt into notifications for their local area, helping them do everything from putting the right bin out on the right day to avoiding road closures, while its self-service portal provides residents with a reservation platform for real-time venue selection and payments.  

A survey of 2000 homeowners commissioned by Datacom found just 35% of residents felt heard and only 37% felt their feedback was valued, despite 54% of Australians feeling engaged with their local council. 

Gen Zs and Millennials, who make up 40% of councils’ populations, are the most receptive to engagement with government channels that facilitate two-way conversations (66% and 68% respectively). 

“Overall, the survey results show positive levels of engagement between local councils and the Australian communities they are serving,’’ says Peter.  

“The notable gap is the ability for people to share and receive information from their council in a more immediate way, and for this to be a two-way channel that enables feedback.’’ 

The research shows digitisation is likely to improve engagement between residents and councils with 57% of respondents saying they would engage with council issues more if they could do it digitally and 67% saying they would use an app if available.  

Half of respondents said they wanted a digital channel to make payments, 41% said they wanted digital channels used to submit and process permit applications and 34% said they would use it for making facility bookings. 

Peter says increased trust between residents and councils means “a better propensity for communities to adopt change when councils implement new processes.” 

He says the emergence of AI offers councils an opportunity to embrace digitisation more quickly while offering better services and freeing up staff to perform higher value tasks, subsequently increasing job satisfaction and boosting retention rates – especially critical at a time when more than 90% of councils cite skills shortages as a key problem.  

But embracing AI and digitalisation needs careful attention to cybersecurity and mitigation of risks such as privacy, liability and intellectual property rights. 

He says the shift to Software as a Service applications is saving councils time and cost, outsourcing much of the heavy lifting around cybersecurity to software providers. 

“Quality providers follow international standards, have certifications like IS027001 and even carry out penetration testing – employing a third party to hunt out vulnerabilities in systems to ensure they’re secure.” 

‘’Ironically, the weakest link in the cybersecurity chain is always the human one,’’ he says. "Staff need to be trained in data security such as how to detect phishing scams, and password security.” 

The digital environment also requires a range of measures such as zero-trust security practices, multi-factor authentication, encryption, and managed threat detection. At the same time, councils need to pay close attention to the data they hold and intend to collect. 

Peter says councils need to ensure they had the required level of visibility and control over their data environment to build trust with their communities. 

Legal experts recommend councils establish 'AI hygiene’ practices to responsibly manage their AI products and services. They suggest internal audits to identify all AI-driven products used in the organisation and gain a clear understanding of how data is transferred and used across the organisation. 

The crucial takeaway for councils, says Peter, is that the use of AI and its applications is set to grow and council teams need to take a proactive approach to understand the risks and opportunities.