A new ‘Intranet’ service launched this month by Waverley Council will give local residents and Council staff better access to in house information. It is also expected to reduce paper consumption by over 40 percent.
The new system will save money by reducing the amount of paper used in Council business, improve the quality of service by having better informed staff and increase the transparency of Council’s activities to the public with information available via Council’s Internet site.
General Manager at Waverley, Michael McMahon said the decision to establish an Intranet system followed a mandatory review of Council’s Delegations’ Register when the inadequacies of the paper based filing system became apparent.
“The obvious solution was to move from a paper based system to a computer accessible system, particularly as most officers with delegations had terminals on their desks,” he said. “This became a launching pad for a number of aspects of Council’s work being published using this medium.”
He said the Intranet, which uses Internet technology to network information within an organisation, can be developed in house at low initial cost.
“The system can overcome a challenge of modern corporate governance, namely how to communicate across all levels of an organisation with immediacy, accuracy and consistency,” Michael said.
“Management decisions can be on everyone’s desk within minutes. Customer service can be improved by allowing staff to keep in touch with what is happening in their own organisation. It also reduces the tyranny of distance for organisations working on a number of sites.”
He added that a final advantage of the system lies in the Intranet forcing the organisation to document changes to processes and procedures as they occur rather than relying on word of mouth.
For further information contact Michael McMahon, telephone (02) 9369 8056.
