For the second year in a row, the City of Whittlesea has won the information technology category of the National Awards for Innovation in Local Government with a project that saves tens of thousands of dollars a year. The award winning video property inspection system, uses a camera fitted to a street sweeper truck, to replace visits and inspections by the City’s valuers.
The camera records about six seconds of each building the truck passes during its routine patrol, then the video is stored on computer and linked with satellite mapping and property ownership details. This allows the valuers to visually inspect five times as many properties as part of their calculation of property values, all from their desktop computers.
City of Whittlesea officers are now adapting the system to spot graffiti, identify street trees needing maintenance and record the architectural character of neighbourhoods for use when the Council determines planning issues.
Whittlesea Mayor, Councillor John Fry, said winning the information technology section of the awards two years running is another reward for the City’s forward thinking.
“This project, like the fire prevention system that won last year’s innovation award, uses technology to save costs and provide better service to our residents,” he said. “Having seen it successfully produce practical results for us, we decided it could do the same for all Councils, and thought it worthwhile to nominate the project for the National Innovation Award.”
The City’s Chief Executive Officer, Graeme Brennan, says the Video Property Mapping (VPM) system will save the City even more money in the future.
“New regulations will soon require Councils to inspect 50 per cent of all properties as part of their regular valuations, compared with the current 20 per cent. This system meets that new requirement easily,” he said. “The applications we are developing will allow Council officers to view a recent picture of almost any street from their desktop computer. That will save hundreds of hours of travel and allow officers to answer residents telephone enquiries on the spot.”
Whittlesea’s category award winning project has already attracted the interest of other Council’s wanting to adopt the technology, and will now be presented to the judges as one of the candidates for the overall national award.
The City of Whittlesea won last year’s information technology category, and then the overall National Award for Innovation in Local Government, with a system that uses satellite navigation and computerised mapping in generating fire prevention notices. That system saves weeks of staff time and thousands of dollars, while eliminating the errors that occurred with the old method that relied on maps and notebooks.
For further information, contact Peter Beaton, Public Relations Officer, telephone (03) 9217 2383.
