Future Directions is a regular feature. This month we interviewed Karen Vought, Chief Information Officer, Gold Coast City Council, Queensland.
Gold Coast City Council’s Chief Information Officer, Karen Vought, said information and communications technology (ICT) is critical for Local Government.
“Information permeates just about everything Local Government does and in some cases the provision of information is the service itself,” she said. “This creates enormous opportunities for using ICT and information assets and leveraging them to influence organisational culture, behaviours and attitudes as well as delivering business benefits and value.”
Karen Vought sets the future course for ICT investments and service delivery for Gold Coast Council and identifies how the organisation will transition to it.
She said like many other private and public sector entities, Local Government is under increasing fiscal pressure.
“It faces many challenges in relation to increased demands for service provision, financial constraints and increasingly higher standards,” she said. “Through efficient use of ICT, we can help to address these challenges and deliver better services.”
Gold Coast City Council is currently undertaking a number of projects aimed at delivering on strategic priorities. These include the implementation of an ICT portfolio management process, which includes governance processes, groups and committees to engage stakeholders and a prioritisation and project ranking model, planning activities to support a greater number of Council’s services being delivered online, and a transition program to move Council to a more integrated suite of business solutions.
Karen Vought said in implementing new initiatives, it is crucial to involve all stakeholders and to have as much transparency and visibility as possible.
“All ICT projects and new activities have some sort of recurrent implication,” she said. “Being clear about this up front results in a more sustainable outcome. Building effective relationships and successful engagement with stakeholders is a key challenge that begins with a shared view on the way forward. This involves agreeing on what the various roles and responsibilities will be and who will fund and resource what components and how.
“We need to focus on what is best for the whole organisation, rather than just components of it.” Having a well defined strategic agenda creates a clear image of the direction Council is headed. This agenda needs to include the right mix of business improvement/transformation activities, while maintaining ongoing services and providing capacity for the business ‘must dos’ along the way.
Karen Vought said to do this successfully, Councils should develop a strong ICT governance framework. “A well managed and balanced ICT portfolio will ensure a greater degree of confidence in the delivery of benefits from the ICT portfolio,” she said. “If projects and directions are clearly defined, the decisions about competing priorities, the makeup of the ICT portfolio and which projects and activities should be undertaken and when become easier.”
Karen Vought said integrating improved ICT planning in business processes, rather than having it as a separate activity will become even more important in the future.
“The ultimate aim is for Councils not to have a separate ICT strategy,” she said. “Ideally it would be embedded in business strategies and the ICT planning process would just be a component of strategic planning, resource allocation and performance monitoring.
