Press Release
Flinders Shire leads the way for small Queensland Councils
October 16, 2009
Flinders Shire Council, 400km west of Townsville, has chosen to implement Civica’s enterprise software application, Authority, including the HP TRIM enterprise document management (EDM) solution, which will replace DataWorks.
Although Council’s first priority was to implement a new EDM solution, Council saw the value of migrating from its existing Civica PCS local government management software to Authority, as TRIM integrates fully with Authority.
Flinders Shire has a reputation as a leader among small Queensland Councils, while its Acting Chief Executive Officer, Leanne Rogers, is the current Queensland Local Government Managers Association, Young Manager of the Year.
She said: “We have been very happy with PCS , but the introduction of new regulations like the State Government’s reporting requirements were obliging us to consider more sophisticated alternatives.
“We assessed our options and when we looked at a number of EDM solutions, TRIM appealed most, especially for its complete integration with Authority and Civica’s commitment to maintaining a high level of customer service and support.”
Council expects to be up and running with TRIM by the end of the year and is scheduled to go live with Authority’s initial modules in March 2010, and to have the entire system operational by the following November.
According to Leanne Rogers, the -Authority-HP TRIM combination will deliver substantial efficiencies that will allow staff to work smarter and deliver better customer service. One significant advantage will be the link to Keyword for Councils, from the Queensland State Archives. Another innovation will be TRIM’s automatic archiving, in which Council staff are presented with schedules of records due to be destroyed, and given the option to do so.
“Authority will certainly improve reporting across all Council areas, while its integration across all our departments will be a huge benefit,” said Leanne. “We will be using Customer Requests, so instead of people asking for things over the counter and having staff pass pieces of paper around the office, requests will be automated and monitored electronically.”
She said Civica’s staff had quickly shown themselves to be “responsive and professional” in their dealings with Council.
Discussing her Young Manager of the Year award, Leanne said: “In a small Shire there are plenty of opportunities for doing a whole variety of things that in larger councils you might not have the chance to do. This put me at an advantage over some other Managers. Also I have been here at Flinders for 15 years.”
Flinders Shire is based at Hughenden, a town of some 1,500 people and the region’s business and commercial centre. Other townships are Prairie, Torrens Creek and Stamford. Hughenden is on the banks of the Flinders River and located on the Overlanders’ Way (Flinders Highway).
The town has direct road access to regional centres and tourist attractions. A major highway links Hughenden to Townsville (376km) and Mount Isa (519km) with a southern sealed road access via the Dinosaur Way to Winton and Longreach. To the north there is a good gravel and sealed road to the Atherton Tablelands and Cairns.
The Flinders Shire is predominantly a grazing area with basalt red and black volcanic soil country north of Flinders River supporting cattle properties, while the black soil downs country south of Hughenden provide grazing land for sheep and cattle.
The Flinders Discovery Centre provides information on national parks, gemfields, mountainous volcanic basalt country, sweeping black soil plains, rich fossil, dinosaur areas and the history arts and culture of the region.