Press Release

Maranoa chooses Authority to manage the challenges of amalgamation

October 14, 2009

From the challenge of amalgamating five small Councils in south-west Queensland, Maranoa Regional Council is emerging with a vision of becoming a strong, efficient and effective local authority, underpinned by a powerful and effective computer system.

That system is Civica’s Authority fully integrated enterprise software application.

The five former Councils were: Shire of Bendemere, Shire of Booringa, Shire of Bungil, Town of Roma and Shire of Warroo.  Initially known as Roma Regional Council, the merged organisation became Maranoa Regional Council in July 2009.

The former Councils all used the PCS software system, acquired by Civica in February 2009. According to Maranoa’s Director of Corporate Services, Martin Cookson, the idea of implementing a more powerful system began to crystallise when the merger was announced. But as the amalgamation process advanced, it became more and more certain that the new Council would need a single integrated solution handling business for all areas of Council.

Martin said: “Initially Civica’s PCS User Group meetings was the catalyst for us.  It became clear that the two systems were chalk and cheese.  PCS is a good solution for small Councils, but a larger organisation with offices operating in an area nearly the size of Tasmania requires better integration and a more efficient system.  User group members saw that to become more efficient we needed to update our reporting capabilities, capture data in real time and utilise facilities like those offered by the Mobile Computing package.”

He added: “In hindsight, it might have been better to move to the more efficient Authority system at the time of the amalgamation, rather than trying to merge all of the data for the five PCS systems.”

Authority will be implemented “as soon as possible – the sooner the better” but staff have a challenge on their hands at present amalgamating assets, consolidating different data sets and formulating ideas for aligning the systems capabilities with Council’s new processes.

When all the data is available, Authority’s Assets & Infrastructure Management (AIM) application will ensure that it is used efficiently and effectively.”

As well as AIM and the basic financial systems, Maranoa will run Authority’s Customer Requests Management application, plus Mobile Computing and the TRIM electronic document management (EDM) solution, which integrates fully with Authority.

Martin Cookson says Council’s strategy is to find the most efficient way to get data into the system, and when it’s all in, to make the most effective use of it.  The best way to achieve these objectives is to leverage the tight integration and powerful reporting capabilities of Authority.

He said the Queensland Government is also a driver for Councils to move to more efficient asset management systems.

“They are driving it as part of their sustainability focus,” said Martin. “After the merger, the State Government expects that Councils will be able to adequately manage their expanded asset infrastructure, this requires accurate and up to date record keeping of ongoing maintenance requirements.  Civica’s Authority AIM is a very powerful tool in that regard, delivering an excellent range of reporting and coupled with Customer requests and works orders it provides an extremely efficient and cost effective asset management system.” 

He said the new, diversified Council will make maximum use of AIM and Authority. Eventually Maranoa will open Councils website to ratepayers, residents and businesses, to pay rates, make service requests and check the progress of these – all via the Web.

Martin said: “Civica’s people have been extremely helpful.  Since the first enquiry they have been very pro-active and supportive, kicking off with a first working meeting within days of signing the contract.”

Maranoa Regional Council, centred on Roma about 480 km west of Brisbane, has a population of 13,000 spread over 58,830 sq km.  Council issues about 7,000 rating notices and has a revenue of $50 million. An oil and gas boom in the Surat Basin promises future growth and income, with Santos and Origin Energy operating locally.  A major pipeline is being built from Maranoa to Gladstone. Traditionally the region has been cattle and wheat country, and Council owns and operates the largest of Australia’s cattle saleyards.