Matt Cowley Tauranga City Councillor

We're all too familiar with expensive mistakes when Government (including council) launches new technology. The most infamous being Government's Novopay.

But it's not just public agencies that get technology wrong. I've seen businesses create a website and Facebook page trying to keep up with the Jones', but they are just adding a new model on top of the old way of doing business. They are running two models, which duplicates their efforts and confuses their customers.

In September 2013, the previous Tauranga City Council invested $1.3 million into urgent upgrades to fix our ICT systems. The investment is giving us a chance to redesign our systems and processes to deliver you better customer service.

This means we're shaking up our approach to serving customers as council evolves into a 21st century business model. Our consent process is part of our customer service review.

Some NZ councils are already processing consents online. Some of their systems are designed purely for processing consents. But we need our online consents programme to be able to talk to other departments to provide you with the best customer service.

Instead of developing an online consents system to fit our current needs, we're changing our operating model first. This will make the online consent process more reliable and responsive to your needs. You will still be able to walk into Council's reception and talk to a real person.

I'm pleased to hear our online building consent pilot will be tested in the next few months. The full online consent process will ‘go live' when we have fully tested it.

Feel free to email me your thoughts (matt.cowley@tauranga.govt.nz), call/text me on 027 6989 548, and follow me at www.facebook.com/a.younger.voice.