Monitoring Local Councils
We are aiming to make local councils more accountable to their ratepayers. While KPI’s are set for most council functions, they are infrequently monitored and results are seldom shared with the public. There is generally a lack of publicly available information. This initiative aims to address that by empowering citizens in general, and youths in particular, to monitor the response time and performance of their local authority.
The key element is a simple, user friendly, technology centric solution which empowers citizens to contribute, monitor and participate. They will report everyday problems related to maintenance such as potholes, faulty street lights, haphazard parking and uncollected garbage by uploading pictures and comments to a publicly accessible website. A copy will be sent to the local council, or alternatively a link made to the local council’s website. Citizens will then monitor the problem and update their reports to show if remedial action was satisfactorily taken, while local councils are expected to act on the problem. It is intended to show local councils that ratepayers are actively monitoring their performance, hence driving them to perform to expectation. It will be similar to a Helpdesk system with reports having Open/In Progress and Closed status. Graphs and charts can then be derived to show overall performance.
The project's concept is to use technology including smart phones to upload reports and generate a report card measuring the local council's performance against their KPI. The use of technology will also appeal to the younger groups to actively participate in this initiative. Beneficiaries will include ratepayers, resident associations and citizen groups.
