Introduction

Councils at the crossroads

Local governments play a key role in driving economic and social progress in our cities and neighbourhoods.

In Australia, New Zealand, and around the world, they are on a path to becoming more digitally savvy and data-focused to improve the way they serve their communities and contribute to a range of public service outcomes.

But a key question emerges as more and more councils aim for efficiency and progress while wrestling with tight budgets, daily operational challenges and ever-increasing service expectations.

Namely, how can they use technology to transform their asset management processes in a more productive and profitable way?

This eBook provides insights into the challenges local governments face and how technology can help address them. We explore five practical pillars of digital transformation in local government, each with a focus on effective asset management.

1) Overcoming an operational mindset

Managing budgets, monitoring assets, and meeting customer expectations makes innovation in local government both challenging and, at the same time, crucial.

Many councils acknowledge the need to move forward with change projects and innovative technology. Unfortunately, legacy processes, heavy workloads, and the constant need to “put out fires” hold them back.

When it comes the management of local government assets, the scope of responsibilities varies greatly from one council to the next. Smaller councils may handle less than 100 leases or licences and others handle portfolios of 500 or more.

To move away from an operational mindset and towards effective digital transformation, local governments need flexible asset and lease management solutions.

Examples are:

• Solutions with “off-the-shelf” functionality that can also be configured to work with unique council data sets and variables, offering custom fields and tailored information for critical management tasks.
• “Catered” implementations that provide a basic, ready-touse database setup that can be further developed based on budget and resources.

2) Combatting departmental silos

Traditionally, local government organisations have been structured around individual departments, which has led to isolated operations and labour-intensive manual tasks.

While efforts have been made to address this by digitising customer-facing council activities, the potential productivity gains of backend improvements often remains untapped.

From an asset management perspective, fragmentation of information across local government departments makes it challenging to gain a holistic view of assets and manage them in a more seamless, efficient, and cost-effective way.

Investment in the right technology tools and systems is one way for local government organisations to break down departmental silos and achieve better data transparency and automation, ultimately improving productivity and cost-effectiveness.

To achieve this, choosing tools that integrate seamlessly within a local government’s tech stack is essential. Lease management solutions that complement existing SaaS and ERP systems play an important role in going beyond customer-facing task administration to higher level asset management.

3) Improving systems functionality

Local governments face a variety of challenges when it comes to meeting IT demands. Legacy system limitations, limited budgets, and a diverse customer base are a few of these.

When it comes to asset management, some of the specific challenges involve:

Dealing with multiple lease and licence types

Local governments play a dual role as lessors of certain assets and occupiers of others. This allows them to contribute to community development and effectively manage public resources.

To optimise their asset management processes, councils need technology solutions with dual capabilities for lessors and lessees. These solutions should also automate rental payments and receipts and accommodate a wide range of lease and license types.

Developing better contract intelligence

Manual lease abstraction has a high potential for errors and inefficiencies. Local governments that handle large volumes of complex contracts in this way can struggle with both compliance issues and operational setbacks.

Using an automated contract intelligence solution comes with several benefits. It allows for error-free data entry and migration, centralises lease information, and makes it easy for teams to collaborate and make informed decisions.

Plus, this sort of tool often provides valuable insights through reporting, helping councils optimise asset use and boost financial sustainability.

4) Achieving compliance and overcoming risk

Risk and compliance issues arising from manual processing of data is a real issue for local government. Concerns include:

• Lack of built-in compliance checks: Using tools without integrated accounting standards controls means that councils can struggle to meet regulatory requirements.
• Data security concerns: Excel files may be susceptible to data breaches and unauthorised access if not properly secured.
• Limited audit trail: Manual systems often fail to provide a robust audit trail and the transparency necessary for proper accountability, a situation which can be aggravated by the siloed structure within council organisations.

Having the right technology tools at their disposal is an important first step for local governments to achieve best practice in data privacy, SOC reporting and audits, among other essential functions.

5) Dealing with lean teams and limited resources

Local governments face a dilemma – they’re dealing with more service demands but not receiving much extra budget to work with. Plus, their staff often have to juggle multiple projects on top of their regular jobs.

To tackle the challenge of having to do more with less, councils need to find smarter ways to deliver services and manage assets.

Having a solid data strategy and the right tech tools can make a big difference. Staying on track with long-term financial goals is easier with solutions that make asset planning and management easier.

In this context, tools like lease management and contract intelligence can be real time-savers and help reduce the need for extra staff, which is a win-win.

Paving the way for digital transformation

A recent KPMG and Public Sector Network survey found that all 43 participating councils were either in the early stages of their digital transformation journeys, or are planning and implementing them.

The most significant challenges identified by councils across the board were rising service expectations and demands, followed closely by immaturity of technology and budget constraints.

Despite sharing common challenges across local government, property and asset managers are nevertheless finding it difficult to advocate for change.

Selling the benefits of technology to finance, IT and procurement can be difficult despite the clear benefits.

How MRI Software can help

MRI Horizon for Councils is a lease accounting and transaction management software that drives results.

It allows you to simplify lease management across diverse portfolios, ensure compliance with accounting standards, and report on every lease detail and critical lease event in a flexible and sophisticated structure.

Call 1300 657 700 today and speak to an expert about how MRI Horizon for Councils can benefit you.