An interview with Ron Sanderson, Deputy General Manager at Brighton Council in Tasmania
With a population of 13,000 people and 44 employees, Tasmania’s Brighton Council might seem to be an unlikely place to be on the cutting edge of IT innovation. Yet some of the most exciting ideas are coming from this Local Government and most of it due to the work of Ron Sanderson who is the Deputy General Manager at Brighton. He is deeply involved in developing new technology for Local Government.
Ron Sanderson said software for Local Government is traditionally developed and supplied by mainland or multinational companies.
“While some Councils use their inhouse IT staff or consultants to develop software applications for specific purposes, Brighton Council has developed a product suite, designed explicitly for Local Government core applications, that replaces these commercial products,” he said.
Brighton has taken this application one step further and created a new business opportunity; a significant divergence from established practice. Its new, wholly owned company, Microwise Australia Pty Limited, operates under Australian Corporation law.
To create a new small business from the public sector takes considerable vision, support and leadership. Ron Sanderson said the Mayor, Councillors and General Manager of Brighton Council have displayed leadership in unanimously supporting this venture.
“The venture is also supported by the State Government and was launched by the late Premier, Jim Bacon, as an example of a Tasmanian IT industry success,” he said. “The software operates on a Microsoft Windows PC platform. “It is intuitive, user friendly and, most importantly, was designed by Local Government for Local Government. It was developed as a prototype with the actual Council officers providing the scope of what was required.
“The project has been validated by the uptake of the software by other Councils, the support of the Tasmanian Government, the formation of a joint venture with Information Outlook, a Melbourne based IT company, and integration with a Microsoft Corporation financial business solution.
This new Local Government IT solution, called CouncilManager™, is being actively marketed in Tasmania and on the mainland and is producing significant interest.
Ron Sanderson believes that Local Government needs to be more entrepreneurial in its approach to challenges.
“This is an example of what can be done by a Local Government that has a vision of where it wants to go,” he said.
The idea for the project came from Ron who joined Council several years ago with no Local Government experience, having worked in the oil industry for some time. With considerable skills and expertise in software development, he quickly assessed Council’s software as out of date, difficult to use, inefficient and lacking basic functionality. It was recognised that a new product would have potential for other Councils with similar legacy software and that this provided a marketing opportunity for Brighton Council.
The initial resources were drawn from within Brighton Council itself, the IT Manager who wrote the software, the staff who used the software and defined what was required for the software and management who lead the business and commercialisation activities. Ron Sanderson said the product is critical to Brighton Council.
“It must work for us,” he said. “This ensures the sustainability and functionality for other users. It differentiates our product from the others that are sold by software companies that are not from the Local Government industry. The participation of Information Outlook in CouncilManager™ and plans to develop the next version in the Microsoft.NET platform ensures long term viability and sustainability.”
As well as being used by ten Tasmanian Councils, the software has been sold to the Eurobodalla Shire Council in New South Wales. Eurobodalla is home to a thriving tourism industry with a base population close to 33,000 and which rises to around 100,000 in peak holiday periods. It has a financial turnover of close to $70 million. CouncilManager™ is currently being seriously considered by three Victorian Councils.
