• Bass Coast Shire Council
• Bundaberg Regional Council
• Casey City Council
• Cassowary Coast Regional Council
• Ipswich City Council
• Lake Macquarie City Council
• Mackay Regional Council

They are also being aggregated on state based news pages, e.g.

• NSW Council News
• Queensland Council News
• Victorian Council News

If your council is publishing news by RSS, please let us know, by leaving a comment below.

The site now contains 2400+ pages of information, and as of 28 February, 9,589 different people have visited on a total of 16,701 occasions and viewed 104,604 pages.

As the graph below indicates, the number of unique visitors each week has been growing steadily since Christmas, and last week 300+ people visited the site.

There are a few new site features planned in the near future so stay tuned.

The site now contains 2333 pages of information, and as of 31 January, 8,626 different people have visited the site on a total of 15,244 occasions and viewed 98,284 pages.

A new link (Photo Library) has been added to the side menu, and a dozen or so images of typical council assets have been uploaded to the site.

Balance Tank - Is a reservoir in which the water level will vary to faciltiate balancing of water. The balancing of water is required to allow for diurnal variance. Examples: Keep water turning over in the reservior or to allow for continuity of operations at a treatment plant by allowing sufficient balancing volume in the balance tank for operations during low consumption.

Service Reservoir - Is a reservoir that maintains a full level of treated water at all times. The water level will only vary over a small range due to pumping control levels. The function is maximium reservoir storage.

I'm not 100% sure. We (Bundaberg) used distinguish between Reservoirs and Balance Tanks, but about 2 years ago we did a review of our Water & Wastewater asset names we renamed the balance tanks reservoirs.

The article below (which also mentions service reservoirs) …

http://nptel.iitm.ac.in/courses/Webcourse-contents/IIT-KANPUR/wasteWater/Lecture%2014.htm

… defines a Balancing Storage as the quantity of water required to be stored in the reservoir for equalising or balancing fluctuating demand against constant supply is known as the balancing storage (or equalising or operating storage).

So perhaps a balance tank is a reservoir used primarily to house a balancing storage?

In any case I will have a word with someone at work tomorrow who is a bit more expert in the field and see if I can get them to add an article and an authoritative definition.

There have been some pretty positive comments about the idea on the IPWEA forum, which is very good to see.
I have added a few photos to the page you created.

http://lgam.wikidot.com/visual-library-for-asset-condition-rating

I have been thinking a bit more about hosting options and how to progress the project, and I think hosting the photos in a number of different locations might not be out of the question, as long as they are released to the public domain. I have experimented with adding information to photo below. If you download it and right click on it and then click "properties" and then "general" you will see the additional information I have added. We should have a think about what naming convention we might want to use, and what sort of metadata we want to attach to the photo.

I have a really good feeling about the project, I hope it gets the support it deserves.

I would like to build a portfolio of these standard pictures/images that could be used across Council boundaries.
This would help standardise how we all talk about condition of assets and then we could move to standard practices for improving/changing the condition.
It may aslo let us tie standard conditions to levels of service (as seen by our communities). This would be a nice and worthwhile outcome.
I look forward to your contributions. I will set up a "place holder" (if not already there), under Condition Assessment for Visual Condition Assessment. (Darron Passlow)

Many of the lists on this site are automatically generated using the ListPages module, which is fine and dandy, but usually of no interest to most users, even that select few that make edits to pages.

However if you happen to make a change to a page with a list, even if a change that has nothing to do with the list, you might find when the page is recompiled it looks very different. Don't Panic, and please don't be put of editing pages and contributing to the site, nothing too serious has happened.

It will get fixed as soon as it is noticed, but if you are keen and proactive you can fix the error yourself. Just move "[[/module]] down a line, e.g.

Change the code that looks a bit like this ….

[[module ListPages order="random" limit="20" separate="false" tags="-hide"]]
%%linked_title%%[[/module]]

To look a bit more like this ….

[[module ListPages order="random" limit="20" separate="false" tags="-hide"]]
%%linked_title%%
[[/module]]

Understand? If not it doesn't really matter. The main thing to remember is that all contributions to the site are very appreciated and it is impossible to break anything or delete anything permanently, so go for it!!

Darron

I'd really love to be able to frame a question, and then have it sent to only those local government people who are either interested in the topic and or likely to know the answer.

A feedback section has just been added to the forum, to try and find out what everyone thinks about the site, how well known it is in Local Government circles, and how it might be able to be improved. If you have 5 minutes, any comments you might have would be greatly appreciated.

• What is good about it?
• What is bad about it?
• How could it be improved?
• How did you find out about it?
• Do other people at your Council know about it or use it?

Please take a few minutes to leave a comment.

Sorry, but I am unaware of any moves to create a Public Sector Credit Union. If I hear of anything I will let you know.

This is more on benefits of LG employees/ public sector employees outside their professional world.

I have documented a few other public sector knowledge sharing initiatives here and here, but I'd really like to get inside the heads of people at other Councils to see what methods of information sharing they favour, and why.

In the new year I'm going to go through my e-mail contacts and ask this very question of anyone who will listen. Hopefully I'll get a few new ideas for the site, or maybe even find a whole new way of sharing information. In the mean time, if you have any good ideas, please respond to this post, and let me know.

The site now contains 2132 pages of information, and as of 30 November, 7,290 different people have visited the site on a total of 13,126 occasions and viewed 87,857 pages.

I agree with everything you say. It isn't a part of the LGAM Wiki, and it does have its own identity & structure.

It is a big, big project, so there is no way I will be able to do it all by myself, but I have been trying to work on it a little bit each night, with a view to getting a framework in place. Once the framework is in place, I will try and develop the Bundaberg wiki as an example of what other communities can do, but it from there on I will be relying on people & community groups in other areas to grow it. I would have thought there would be quite a few groups & businesses that would be interested in a bit of free advertising and networking opportunities, but I guess only time will tell.

In summary, good idea but wrong driver and wrong set up.
Regards
Darron

I have been thinking about this for a while now, and I think I have come up with a good way of getting the project happening.

If you are interested, please check out the Unit Rate page, for more information.

When I first put the membership graph on the front page, I was linking live to zoho, which is what I presumed was causing you trouble. This time around it is a local file so didn't think you or anyone else would have any trouble viewing it. It is a png file, but all browsers should be able to view "png" files without any difficulty - the banner which appears on every page is a "png" file.

I have deleted the image of the culvert, and the graphs will move down the page and disappear from the front page automatically as new news items are added. I hear what you are saying about making sure the front page doesn't get too busy, and I hate sites chock full of flash animations and the like that take ages to load, but on the other hand doesn't having just text make it a bit bland and boring?

Like Darron, I'd like to know what everyone one else thinks?

The site now contains 2050 pages of information, and as of 31 October, 6,604 different people have visited the site on a total of 11,900 occasions and viewed 81,742 pages.

The average number of people visiting the site each weeks seems to be trending in the right direction, but it is still pretty up and down from week to week.

When you change the title it can sometimes cause problems with existing links. It is usually best to create a new page and copy the contents across to the new page, and depending on the situation make the original page a redirect page.

I have made a copy, but I have left both pages the same for the moment.

I think perhaps ABEF & Six Sigma should be on the Business Improvement page, and the other links on the problem solving techniques page, but I am open to further suggestions.

ABEF certainly references a range of problem solving techniques, I don't know so much about Six Sigma, but I think it might too.

1. Watching Pages
2. RSS Feeds

Watching pages is the easiest. All you have to do is click on "Start watching this page" at the bottom right hand corner of the page, and you will be sent an e-mail whenever the page is updated. This is a good option if you are interested in one or two subjects and you want to know when there is a change, but if you start watching everything on the site your inbox could start to clog up very quickly with notification messages so it may not be for everyone.

I actually prefer the RSS Feed option in combination with Google Reader & the IGoogle Google Reader gadget.

It is all a bit tricky to take in, but I think it is worth the effort of at least looking at the Google Reader link above. It wasn't immediately obvious to me when I first signed up how Google Reader would benefit me, but I use it a lot now.

If you do decide to use it, here are a few LGAM feeds that you might like to subscribe to.

http://www.lgam.info/feed/forum/posts.xml - all forum posts
http://lgam.wikidot.com/feed/front/start/news.xml - just the posts in the news category

I just started an Introduce Yourself Thread, which would be an ideal place to start if you are thinking of taking the plunge!!

I started a page called Problem Solving Techniques a while a go, with the intent of either compiling a list of process improvement tools or actually developing an open business improvement system for Local Government.

Perhaps I got the title wrong and should have named it "Business Improvement System" or something like that. Given that there are a few people interested in the topic, perhaps that might be a good page to work on as a team project. What do you think?

I agree with you that 6 Sigma may not be the best technique for the majority of councils. I suspect some councils consider (or were advised to consider) it as a tool for process re-engineering during amalgamation. There may be a long way from ‘evaluating’ to ‘implementing’…

Thanks

Good to hear from you. I often wonder if the people who have signed up to the site but not posted or edited much content, are still lurking and visiting regularly or have lost interest and more or less forgotten about the site.

Looking forward to seeing your contribution.

Regards,

Leila

This may be a little controversial, so I am happy to take comments on this. I am sure there are pockets of excellence but how do the majority perform?

Regards

Robyn McIntyre
Moreland, Australia

Do you have link for this? Or when can I find/order hard copy for the same?

Similar studies have been done overseas - for example, in the UK, local councils' websites are ranked annually. On the national level, UN ranks e-government capabilities of about 200 nations every 2 years.

If you like to share your perspective, and, in return, leverage a collective experience of our peers, please contact me via my e-mail. This survey is open to Australian and New Zealand local councils, and all participating councils will receive a complimentary copy of a report based on the survey results.

The first part of this study captures business perspectives and looks into e-strategies from the point of view of 4 key business objectives – Public Service, Business/Economic Development, Financial Sustainability/ Efficient Operation and Community Engagement. A questionnaire designed for Corporate Services and Comms Managers takes about 15 min to complete.

The second part of the study enables benchmarking of e-capabilities using 18 parameters grouped around 3 key functions of LG websites – Inform, Transact and Engage. A questionnaire designed for IT Managers takes 10-15 min.

Thanks,

ua.moc.srotacidni-hcet|avosabba_aliel#alieL

Thank you for your comments. In order to assess financial benefits local councils realise via their on-line service delivery channel we asked local councils to estimate

a) total $$ from on-line public services (rates, registrations, applications, any other services councils may have )
b) total $$ from business services (rates, registrations, applications, tenders and any other services)
c) total cost savings.

3% (of the total council revenue) reflects an average for the total revenue derived from on-line services. I am also looking into non-financial benefits. Better understanding of the on-line revenue may assist councils with planning / prioritization of their e-initiatives.

Thanks,
Leila

This won't help very much, but Wikipedia defines impairment as a downward revaluation of fixed assets.
I have created a page on the topic, and hopefully someone with more accounting knowledge than me, will add some more useful information to the page in due course.