Wollondilly Shire Council has received national recognition for its Integrated Services Delivery Program at the 2022 Local Government Professionals National Federation Awards.

Wollondilly was named the winner of the Innovative Management Initiative Award for the program which has revolutionised and will continue to improve Council’s customer service, service delivery and business efficiency.

The project has implemented the world leading customer service and business automation tool, Salesforce, that will allow the organisation to quickly, easily and cheaply digitise and automate the vast majority of its business.

Mayor Matt Gould said, "In recent years Council has identified the need to modernise, digitise and automate our business to better serve our customers and reduce the costs to our rate payers by removing manual and inefficient business processes.”

“This project has built the infrastructure that will allow us to continue to improve customer service and save many millions in efficiencies through digitisation and automation.”

“It has so far accumulated annual savings of $576,000 for an annual fixed cost of $140,000. We have only just begun to realise the enormous potential that has been created.”

“I’d like to congratulate the Project Team for all their hard work and innovation in implementing this unique system. While other councils have modernised and digitised parts of their business, no other council has made the same fundamental change to their technology that allows the fast development of new solutions like this.”

So far, the project:

• has created a customer portal for online services which allows customers to log and follow the progress of their own requests
• allows customers to fully manage their rates account online
• has digitised the onsite sewage management service and building inspections.
• allows for venue booking and management
• manages food and health inspections

The initiative was implemented by a Project Team made up of staff from IT, Customer Service, Communications and Planning, with additional input from right across the organisation.

Wollondilly has also formed partnerships with a number of other councils who are embarking on a similar journey, including

Tea Tree Gully, City of Marion, Northern Beaches, Port Adelaide and Charles Sturt Councils, who meet regularly to share knowledge and resources.