Auckland Council

Elected members rely on Auckland Council to provide them quality advice and support, including technology and tools that help them be more effective in their roles. We helped Auckland Council make life a little easier, greener, and more efficient for their elected members.

Meeting info that needed an overhaul

Auckland Council faced a problem with many aspects of their meeting preparation process. Their system was fit for purpose but aging, and they needed new ways to provide, record, publish and analyse information for political meetings. From document packs and note-taking to action reminders, their systems required manual work-arounds offered little functionality for elected members.  As a result, many elected members were resorting to printed copies of council papers to prepare and take notes. This brought its own challenges around storing, searching and keeping information confidential. Not to mention the number of trees this took!

Our brief: make meetings work better

We worked with Auckland Council to understand what their elected members needed. Their vision was to provide a robust technology solution to support political decision-making processes now and in the future. As well as receiving the right documents at the right time and being able to take notes, we uncovered some specific requirements, including:

• working in a ‘desktop’ environment as well as in a mobile app
• working offline as well as online
• catering for ‘closed’ (confidential) meetings and meetings with ‘closed’ sections only available to specific people
• making it easier for elected members to refer to previous decisions and documents.

Our process: bespoke not ready-made

Auckland Council originally asked for a package solution, but no off-the-shelf solution met all their requirements for their complex and unique governance structure. We showed Auckland Council that a bespoke solution was the best way to get all the features they need. Building everything around proven components helped us develop that bespoke solution lightning-fast. We delivered what would typically be a 12-month project in half that time.

The outcome: elected members are better supported and organised

We developed a system called Nexus, which provides clear and easily consumable information for elected members. The elected members have adopted Nexus enthusiastically as this digital platform supports and empowers them to prepare, participate in meetings, and greatly assists with their decision-making.

More efficient decision-making means better value for ratepayers. And Auckland Council owns Nexus outright because it’s a bespoke solution with no ongoing licensing fees.

Nexus makes it easy to incorporate videos and other digital information into meeting packs. And every meeting that uses it represents another stack of paper saved!

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