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New software promotes business excellence

Located midway between Sydney and Newcastle in New South Wales, the City of Gosford has developed an IT solution to manage its performance reporting.

Council's Community Services and Organisation Development Director, Terry Thirlwell, said the Performance Manager Software was produced in conjunction with a private sector software provider.

"The software supports business excellence through an integrated approach to business performance, and the ability to provide timely data for managers with a variety of reports," he said.

Gosford employs approximately 1,600 staff, within five directorates, 29 business units and a total of 160 individual service units.

Terry Thirlwell said Council's budget for 2005-06 was approximately $300 million.

"This equates to a lot of work and spending that needs to be reported," he said.

Council's existing process for reporting its performance on a quarterly basis is a manual system. Reports identify performance indicators and how successfully or otherwise each Directorate, their Business Units and Service Units achieved their performance targets.

Terry Thirlwell said this manual system does not allow for any timely corrective action to be taken for either over or under achievement of performance targets.

"The Project Manager Software provides an alignment between strategic and management plans and the operations of Council," he said. "Projects are able to be measured against a range of indicators and their impacts on each of the strategies contained in the strategic and management plans assessed."

By implementing the Performance Manager Software, Gosford has the ability to:

• integrate strategic, business and annual plans
• identify how departments are performing in real time
• locate any hot spots in Council both operationally and strategically
• leverage best practice and methodologies in performance management strategies and measures
• empower the organisation to be more flexible in an ever changing environment by constantly analysing its performance against its strategic goals.

The new software system has been installed and is currently in a transition process. It is expected to be fully operational by mid 2007.

For further information contact Terry Thirlwell, telephone (02) 4325 8222 or email terry.thirlwell@gosford.nsw.gov.au

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