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Taupo District Council offers better Online Services

The Taupo District Council is the governing body for the Taupo region in the central North Island of New Zealand. The Council’s role is to enable democratic local decision-making and meet the current and future needs of its constituents relating to high quality infrastructure, local public services, and performance of regulatory functions.

Council Size: 294 Employees | Population: 36,200 | Solution: Online Services

Our customer experience has improved dramatically through the convenience of online vetting and submission.     David Greaves, Consents and Regulatory Manager, Taupo District Council

The Challenge

In March 2012, the Prime Minister announced ten results as part of the Better Public Services programme. Result number 10 specifies that New Zealanders should be able to complete up to 70 percent of the most common transactions with Government easily and in a digital environment. Taupo District Council is just one of the organisations in the process of aligning itself with this goal. In 2013, Datacom and Taupo District Council launched Online Services for Land Information Memorandums (LIMs), so the Taupo District’s constituents could apply for information on land and buildings online.

The LIM service was award-winning. The initiative was so successful that Taupo District Council decided to expand on this offering by introducing new functionality to allow people to also apply for building consents over the internet.

The Datacom Difference

Applying for a building consent is a complex process, and one that can be confusing when filled out on paper. Datacom’s Online Services building consent process simplifies and streamlines the building consent process while guiding the user through it.
 
Because Datacom had already developed a building consent process for other councils, Taupo District Council was able to reuse and adapt this to their needs.
 
Datacom had previously worked with Taupo District Council and had done similar work for other Local Government bodies. The Council trusted Datacom to deliver the project and do it right. Datacom provided Taupo District Council with everything they needed in a short time frame, at a low cost.

Results

As a result of digitising the application process, people can now apply for building consents online and track their progress anytime, anywhere. Approximately 40% of building consents are now submitted electronically, resulting in a significant reduction in scanning, paper consumption and costs for both customers and councils.

The new and improved process has resulted in a higher level of convenience for everyone. Customers and staff no longer have to physically attend vetting and other building related meetings when applying online, saving a considerable amount of time. Online Services has also increased customer satisfaction with one architect filing 30 building consents online in 8 months and estimated a saving of 60 hours of time during that period.

 “Our customer experience has improved dramatically through the convenience of online vetting and submission. In addition to this we have seen significant cost savings internally associated with reduced printing, scanning and vetting where an application is done online.”
David Greaves, Consents and Regulatory Manager, Taupo District Council

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