Council must embrace this technology and push to provide as much information as they can. While council currently maintains a website, it seems to be infrequently updated and missing a lot of important information. I was looking at a website for a council in South Australia recently, that allowed you to Pay your rates bill, register your dog, search the cemetery records, report a complaint and even search the library catalogue for a book.
Providing the information online removes the need for people to contact the customer service centres freeing up resources to deal with other issues. A good website is an employee that is at work 24 hours a day and 7 days per week.
I support wholeheartedly, the continued publication of the Bottle Tree Bulletin. I think that this wonderful community resource is an invaluable tool for the bringing of communities together from across the region. I do feel, however, that the council is not using this resource to its full potential. I would like to see more “operational” type information included in this publication. Information such as Planned works, such as where the road maintenance crews are working and where they are headed next, when the sewers are going to be fogged, the library opening hours and the like. Council is paying for the publication and they need to use it to its full potential.
Good communication is the key to ensuring that the public retains confidence in what council is doing. When people are unable to find out what is going on, is when the suspicion starts to creep into their minds. If there is nothing to hide, why hide it?
I have to disagree about the Bottle Tree Bulletin. Most of the info in it is already covered by Maranoa Mail, so it seems to me to be a complete waste of ratepayers money. Surely there are most cost effective ways of getting Council's message out.
ReplyDeleteJanet, In it's current form, you may be right about the Bottle Tree Bulletin, however, I feel that the council is not using the Bottle Tree Bulletin effectively, They should be using it to inform the public of information of a more "Operational" nature. Roadworks programmes, Wild Dog baiting dates, holiday youth programmes, editorial background on council decisions etc. Largely, the reason you get the same thing in the Bottle Tree Bulletin as the Maranoa Mail is because the council supplies the same media releases to both. When asked for more council specific and operational info, they have said that "we can't be giving you special treatment, you can only get the same media as the other outlets" This is ridiculous, if they are paying to print it, they should be using it better.
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