Agenda of Activities Performance Audit Committee

Activities Performance Audit Committee

5 August 2015

Description: sdclogo

Property File Digitisation Business Case

Record No: R/15/6/11256

Author: Gillian Cavanagh, Manager - Knowledge Management

Approved by: Damon Campbell, Chief Information Officer

☒ Decision ☐ Recommendation ☐ Information

Purpose

1 To enable the Activities Performance Audit Committee to review the Property File Digitisation business case and make a decision to approve the undertaking of the project as per the Southland District Council 10 Year Plan 2015-2025.

Executive Summary

2 In the 10 Year Plan 2015-2025 one of the key budgeted projects for the Corporate Support activity is the Property File Digitisation project. This project aims to scan all of Council’s property records in order to reduce risk, increase statutory compliance, eliminate physical space demands, provide a platform for future service delivery improvements eg electronic consent lodgement and processing, and improve the publics’ and staffs access to Council’s property files.

3 Council currently operates a paper based property filing system for the storage of its property records. This system has increased by approximately 239 linear metres or 58% of its original capacity in the last 10 years and weighs approximately 9 tonnes. This has placed increasingly high demands on the storage space available to Council to store these vital records.

4 With limited options to expand the storage of the property files without reducing the level of service and increasing risk of loss or damage, digitisation has become a vital component of being an effective Council.

5 The digitisation project will enable Council staff to work smarter and have access to any property file, wherever they work and will enable the public to access any public property information online and from any Council office.

Recommendation

That the Activities Performance Audit Committee:

a) Receives the report titled “Property File Digitisation Business Case” dated 24 July 2015.

b) Determines that this matter or decision be recognised as not significant in terms of Section 76 of the Local Government Act 2002.

c) Determines that it has complied with the decision-making provisions of the Local Government Act 2002 to the extent necessary in relation to this decision; and in accordance with Section 79 of the Act determines that it does not require further information, further assessment of options or further analysis of costs and benefits or advantages and disadvantages prior to making a decision on this matter.

d) Approves the Property File Digitisation Business Case and to undertake the digitisation project using the ‘single year digitisation’ option as outlined in the business case document.

Content

Background

6 Council has a legislative requirement to store and manage the records relating to properties in the Southland District. Currently this is achieved through the use of a paper based property filing system. This system has increased by approximately 239 linear metres or 58% of its original capacity over the last 10 years.

7 These files are public records that are accessed by the public, utilised by Council staff in the office and used by officers in the field.

8 Paper based property filing systems such as the one employed at Southland District Council are common place throughout New Zealand councils and many have or are now planning to undertake similar digitisation projects.

9 Whilst the property filing system structure as a whole complies with the required standards for Council’s building consent accreditation, a large portion of the individual files have not been brought up to this standard as files are only brought up to standard when they accessed by knowledge management staff. Accreditation requirements are constantly evolving and while a paper filing system meets the current requirements it cannot be assumed it will always be the case.

10 Council is also in the possession of historic building and property related information from its predecessor authorities that cannot easily be assigned to a property file without considerable manual effort, this increases the timeframes for the delivery

Issues

Physical Space Demands

11 The property filing system is at capacity and there is little to no more shelving space available to store the files. To further compound this problem, options to better utilise the property filing space in the Knowledge Management department have been found to be unfeasible due to the lack of a concrete base for mobile shelving and an inability to backfill our existing subfloor and meet the mobile shelving requirements. There is also little to no space for additional shelving within the Invercargill office.

12 One alternative that has been considered is moving some of the property file collection to Council’s Archives building. This is not seen as a viable option as it would reduce the service levels Council provides for its property file related services.

13 The current property file shelving is a potential earthquake risk. The shelves are extremely heavy, closer together than good practice dictates and many of the shelving units are not secured and could potentially fall over in a natural disaster.

14 The existing space used at the Bowmont Street archives will be additional work that will be considered as part of future disposal and retention schedule development. The Digitisation Business Case does not address the majority of the records held within the Council Archive.

15 Council Archives is the repository of Southland District Council and its predecessor agencies archives and Southland District Council inactive records and will be address separately.

16 The need to retain a physical archives location will still be required for the foreseeable future due to Public Records Act 2005 (PRA) requirements for local authorities to retain their own archives to store records as per the list of protected records that is maintained by the Chief Archivist.

Reducing Property File Associated Risk

17 Property files contain vital information that are used by staff and viewed by members of the public. This results in property files being routinely taken from the filing system in Knowledge Management and left at desks, stored in Council vehicles, taken out into the field, transported between Council offices or given to members of the public for viewing at a Council office.

18 This represents a significant risk to Council as the possibility of a loss of records or the exposure of confidential records is quite high.

19 When a property file is requested of the Knowledge Management department for public viewing, the file is vetted and the confidential component of the file is removed by a Knowledge Management staff member. This is a time consuming manual task with no formal procedure or check to ensure that the only the correct confidential information is removed. As the property filing system is open to access by all staff, there are occasions where property files are given to members of the public without being vetted by the Knowledge Management department. The overall success of this process is due to the diligence of the members of the Knowledge Management department. Despite this, there are occasions where confidential information can be inadvertently provided to a member of the public or critical public information can be accidentally removed from a property file for inspection.

20 The third risk that Council faces in this regard is the loss of property records.

21 With files regularly taken out into the field, transported between Council offices and left in Council vehicles, there is a potential for Council to lose some or all of the contents of a property file. These records are irreplaceable if lost as the property file is often the only copy Council holds of the records.

22 A selection of property files are ‘unofficially’ stored outside of the current property filing system. It is estimated that between the Te Anau office and the Gore-based Building Control Officers, up to 300 property files are permanently stored off-site.

23 These files are at risk of becoming out of date and used by staff or shown to the public without the correct information and are also at a greater risk of loss or damage as they are not afforded the security or protection of being kept within Council’s property filing system.

Improve Access to Property Files

24 The business processes that rely upon the property file records are mostly complex processes that involve several staff spread across multiple departments. The reliance on a single physical property file impedes this process with staff members unable to complete their tasks until the staff member currently in possession of the file completes their own tasks and passes the file to the next person. These delays are commonly reflected throughout the organisation with emails sent to all users attempting to locate a property file. In addition to this delay, staff often spend time attempting to find a property file and are delayed as they search for the person in possession of the file.

25 Files can be requested to be viewed by members of the public at Council’s Invercargill office or any Area Office. This often requires the customer provides a day or on rare occasions more notice so that the file can be located, vetted by the Knowledge Management staff and sent to the required office to be viewed. Because of the legal requirements and the file representing Council’s only record of the information it contains files are not allowed to be viewed without a staff member present to ensure no items are removed.

Factors to Consider

Legal and Statutory Requirements

Alignment with Archives New Zealand Standards

26 Archives New Zealand issued the mandatory Records Management Standard in May 2014. This standard is issued under the Public Records Act 2005 and “sets out the minimum requirements for the management of records by public offices and local authorities.” Implementing the requirements of the standard help ensure “local authority records are reliable, authentic, have integrity and are usable. Records with these characteristics provide trustworthy evidence of business activity. This enables public sector organisations to meet both their internal operational and reports needs and their external accountability obligations.”

27 An analysis of the property filing systems against the Records Management Standard principles and requirements highlights a number of areas where minimum requirements are not being met and cannot be easily met in the current environment.

28 The following outlines the principles and requirements that are not being met either in part or fully:

Requirement 4.1 Access to records must be managed appropriately

29 While procedures are in place for staff and public access to property files the process is heavily reliant on individuals identifying and removing sensitive records from the file. Space constraints mean sensitive/confidential information is often filed in the same physical file as the public access information. Sensitive information is filed under a separate divider at the back of the file.

Requirement 4.2 Records must be accessible when required

30 Physical files are often with Building Control Officers in the office, in the field or held by Building Control Officers that work out of Te Anau and Gore. While manual procedures are in place to track the location of files it is not possible to audit the location of all files. Access to files by staff or the public can be delayed by several days.

Requirement 5.2 Retention periods and disposal for records must be defined and documented

31 The current classification structure of the property filing system does not allow for retention and disposal to be added. The inclusion of records relating to the activity “council owned property” within the property filing system with no classification based on function/ activity/task means that retention to these records cannot be easily applied.

Principle 6 Maintain the Integrity of Records

32 The requirements within this principle deal primarily with the security and storage of records. The current storage conditions of the property filing system do not meet these requirements. The property filing system is set up in an open plan office with a hallway running beside it allowing access to other offices and parts of the building. Records are not adequately protected from natural and man-made hazards. Records are not adequately protected from unauthorised access. The shelving does not meet industry best practice standards. At risk records cannot be easily identified and managed.

Building Act 2004

33 The Building Act 2004 stipulates the property related information Council must hold, the duration of which Council must keep the information and the requirements for allowing members of the public to view the information.

34 At present Council meets its obligations in relation to this Act but in a digitised environment will be able to provide a much higher level of service to the public that wish to view property files.

Community Views

35 This project was listed as a district-wide proposal in Council’s 10 Year Plan 2015-2025 Consultation Document. There were no submissions received on this project as a part of the consultation process.

Costs and Funding

36 The 10 Year Plan includes a budget of $1.5 million dollars for this project.

37 The preferred option of the business case has an estimated project cost of $1,362,750. An indicative breakdown of these costs is provided in the below table:

Product/Service	Cost	Source of estimate
Digitisation of property files	$950,000	Based on RFI figures
HP TRIM upgrade	$50,000	Based on previous upgrades costs
File preparation and QA Resource	$45,000	Based on existing salary for similarly skilled employee
Website enhancement	$100,000	Analogous estimate based on website redevelopment project in 2013
Shelving removal, office reconfiguration and installation at Archives	$10,000	Analogous estimate based on similar work
Offline staff access to property files	$30,000	Analogous estimate based on similar software acquisitions
Contingency	$177,750.00	15% of Sub-total
Total	$1,362,750.00

38 All estimates in the above table are considered preliminary estimates and definitive estimates will be developed with further project planning.

Policy Implications

39 As a part of this project Council’s Recordkeeping Policy will be required to be updated to reflect the move to electronic storage of property files.

Analysis

Options Considered

40 The attached business case contains a full summary of the digitisation options investigated and the reasoning behind the selection of the preferred method of delivering this project.

Option 1 - Do nothing

41 This option represents the cost of doing nothing. Whilst the option of maintaining the status quo is always considered a valid option, due to the current shortage of shelving space, it is inevitable that some form of action will be required to increase the property filing system storage capacity if it was decided that digitisation was not viable at this time.

42 An investigation has been undertaken into potential options for increasing the shelving options. Of the two options identified, both were not considered viable options. These were:

(a) Replace current shelving with mobile shelving units, or

(b) Move some or all of the property filing system to Archives.

43 Introducing mobile shelving units was found to be infeasible due to the lack of a concrete base for mobile shelving and an inability to backfill our existing subfloor to meet the mobile shelving requirements.

44 Moving some or all of the property filing system was also not considered a viable alternative as storing the records at the Archives facility would decrease the service levels of property file dependent business processes as the ability for staff to access these files would be significantly reduced. This option would also require a large change to how the Knowledge Management team function with staff having to be permanently based in the Archives facility and increased trips between Archives and the Invercargill office to transport records and property files.

45 Overall this option did not align well with the business case’s investment objectives and would leave Council with considerable questions about how to maintain the property filing system in both the immediate and long term future.

Option 2 - Undertake the digitisation project using the business cases preferred method

46 Council’s preferred method is described in the business case as ‘Single Year Digitisation’. At a high level this requires Council to send all of its property files to a digitisation provider and agree to a set volume of property files digitised per week. This would ensure the project was completed within a defined timeframe. This allows the vendor to allocate dedicated resource to the project and usually results in the vendor providing a lower cost to undertake the work. The agreement with the vendor would also allow for ‘urgent’ requests for a digitised property file to be requested and returned within a designated timeframe. These timeframes ranged from one, four and 24 hours for electronic delivery of the required file.

47 To ensure that the options outlined in the business case could be best estimated and viable preferred options of potential suppliers identified, a Request for Information (RFI) process was undertaken. The RFI results provided feedback and cost estimates for developing the business case. The respondents almost unanimously recommended this method as their preferred and established method of undertaking a digitisation project and a model that has been used by other councils.

48 A high level overview and timeline of how the project would be undertaken using this method has been provided as Attachment Two to this report.

Analysis of Options

Option 1 - Do Nothing

Advantages

Disadvantages

· There are no significant advantages to this option.

· Does not resolve the issues with property filing storage space.

· Does not reduce Council’s property file related risk.

· Does not improve staff and public access to property information.

· Does not provide a platform for future improvement of property related services eg electronic lodgement and processing of consent applications.

· Requires Council to find new storage options and investigate how this would impact Council’s services.

· Requires additional expenditure to provide alternative storage solutions.

Option 2 - Undertake the digitisation project using the business cases preferred method.

Advantages

Disadvantages

· Resolves the issues with property filing storage space.

· Reduces Council’s property file related risk.

· Improves staff and public access to property information.

· Provides a platform for future improvement of property related services e.g. electronic lodgement and processing of consent applications.

· There are no significant disadvantages to this option.

Assessment of Significance

49 Under the Council’s Significance and Engagement Policy the Council is required to consider the following factors in considering the significance of a decision:

· The degree to which the proposal affects the district and/or individual communities.

· The degree to which the proposal affects the level of service of a significant activity.

· The degree to which the proposal has a financial impact on Council or the rating levels of its communities.

· The degree to which the matter has cultural relevance.

· The degree to which the matter has an impact on the environment.

50 This project is not considered significant in respect of this policy.

Recommended Option

51 The recommended option is for Council to adopt Option 2 allowing officers the ability to plan and undertake the digitisation project as per the 10 Year Plan 2015-2025.

52 It is noted that this project will involve at least one or more contracts that will require Council approval, adopting this option does not allow staff to act outside of any delegated authority and approval of these contracts will be sought of Council as per the Council’s Procurement Policy.

Next Steps

53 Officers will formalise the project team and undertake detailed project planning before commencing with the project.

Attachments

a Indicative Timeline for APAC Report - Digitisation View

b Property File Digitisation - Business Case View

Activities Performance Audit Committee

05 August 2015

1 Document Information

1.1 Document History

Version	Issue Date	Changes
0.1	07/10/2014	Initial Draft
0.2	08/10/2014	Reviewed by Damon
0.3	08/10/2014	Minor Amendments
0.4	03/06/2015	Added Risk Information

2 Purpose

This business case seeks approval to invest up to $1.5 million to digitise Council’s property filing system and implement changes to affected business processes.

3 Strategic Context

3.1 Organisational Overview

The purpose of the Southland District Council as set out on Section 10 of the Local Government Act 2002 is:

• To enable democratic local decision-making and action by, and on behalf of, communities; and

• To meet the current and future needs of communities for good quality local infrastructure, local public services, and performance of regulatory functions in a way that is most cost-effective for households and businesses.

To give effect to that stated purpose, the Council has overall responsibility and accountability in a variety of roles including:

a. Planning the District’s strategic direction alongside local communities within the District as part of developing the Long Term Plan (LTP) to take a sustainable development approach and promote community wellbeing.

b. Facilitating solutions to local issues and needs.

c. Advocacy on behalf of the local community with central government, other local authorities and other agencies.

d. Providing prudent stewardship and the efficient and effective use of resources within the District in a sustainable way.

e. Risk management.

f. Management of local infrastructure including network infrastructure
(eg roads, sewage disposal, water, stormwater) and community infrastructure
(eg libraries, reserves and recreational facilities).

g. Administering various legal and regulatory requirements.

h. Ensuring the integrity of management control systems.

i. Informing and reporting to communities, ratepayers and residents.

Council is guided by its vision: “To have thriving, healthy Southland communities”.
It also has a mission of “Working together for a better Southland”. These are underpinned by a guiding principle of “People First” and supported by three Council outcomes, which are:

a. Supporting our communities. We want Southland’s communities to be desirable places to live, grow up, run a business, raise a family and enjoy a safe and satisfying life.

b. Making the most of our resources. We want to be good custodians of the environment to ensure that people living here now and in the future can sustain themselves and that the natural beauty of Southland is retained.

c. Being an effective Council. We will be prudent, innovative and be an enabler for our communities.

3.2 Alignment to Strategic Goals

Council has also developed three Strategic Goals in support of our vision and mission. These strategic goals are:

a. The Southland Way - Empowering our Communities;

b. Growing our Communities;

c. Dynamic, Effective and Efficient Organisation.

The Digitisation Business Case supports our strategic goals through the following initiatives:

a. Improving public access to property records through online access to public property information.

b. Improving staff access to property records. Multiple staff can access the information simultaneously; in the field and at area offices.

c. Developing a platform for the continued improvement of Council’s property related services such as e-processing (including e-lodgement and e-delivery), increased efficiency in the processing of LIMs

The proposal aligns with the purpose of Council as the property filing system is a critical tool that is utilised in Council’s undertaking of many of its regulatory functions, and the digitisation of these files will enable Council to push for more cost-effective processes and faster decision-making when property file information is required and ensure that it meets the requirements of the Public Records Act 2005.

Council’s outcome of ‘Being an effective Council’ and the strategic goal of a “Dynamic, Effective and Efficient Organisation” aligns with this proposal as the digitisation of the property filing system will future-proof important Council records and provide the platform for Council to deliver innovative services and enable our communities to have greater and faster access to public property information.

The strategic goals of ‘The Southland Way - Empowering our Communities’ and ‘Growing our Communities’ align with the proposal by providing efficient access and transparency around our public access property information.

3.3 Alignment with Archives New Zealand Standards

Archives New Zealand issued the mandatory Records Management Standard in May 2014. This standard is issued under the Public Records Act 2005 and “sets out the minimum requirements for the management of records by public offices and local authorities.” Implementing the requirements of the standard help ensure “local authority records are reliable, authentic, have integrity and are usable. Records with these characteristics provide trustworthy evidence of business activity. This enables public sector organisations to meet both their internal operational and reports needs and their external accountability obligations.”

An analysis of the property filing systems against the Records Management Standard principles and requirements highlights a number of areas where minimum requirements are not being met and cannot be easily met in the current environment.

The following outlines the principles and requirements that are not being met either in part or fully:

Requirement 4.1 Access to records must be managed appropriately

While procedures are in place for staff and public access to property files the process is heavily reliant on individuals identifying and removing sensitive records from the file. Space constraints mean sensitive/confidential information is often filed in the same physical file as the public access information. Sensitive information is filed under a separate divider at the back of the file.

Requirement 4.2 Records must be accessible when required

Physical files are often with building inspectors in the office, in the field or held by building inspectors that work out of Te Anau and Gore. While manual procedures are in place to track the location of files it is not possible to audit the location of all files. Access to files by staff or the public can be delayed by several days.

Requirement 5.2 Retention periods and disposal for records must be defined and documented

The current classification structure of the property filing system does not allow for retention and disposal to be added. The inclusion of records relating to the activity “council owned property” within the property filing system with no classification based on function/activity/task means that we cannot apply retention to these records.

Principle 6 Maintain the Integrity of Records

The requirements within this principle deal primarily with the security and storage of records. The current storage conditions of the property filing system do not meet these requirements. The property filing system is set up in an open plan office with a hallway running beside it allowing access to other offices and parts of the building. Records are not adequately protected from natural and man-made hazards. Records are not adequately protected from unauthorised access. The shelving does not meet industry best practice standards. At risk records cannot be easily identified and managed.

4 Strategic Context

Key stakeholders identified three investment objectives for this proposal.
The case for change is summarised below for each investment objective.

4.1 Investment Objectives

4.1.1 Investment Objective 1: Eliminate Physical Space Demands

Existing Arrangements

Over a 10 year period from 2003 to 2013, the shelving capacity for the property filing system has increased 239.4 linear metres to 409.5 linear metres or 58% of the original capacity. With the current rate of growth, the property filing system has until about October 2014 until it is at capacity and there is no more shelving space available to store the files. To further compound this problem, options to better utilise the property filing space in the Knowledge Management department have been found to be unfeasible due to the lack of a concrete base for mobile shelving and an inability to backfill our existing subfloor and meet the mobile shelving requirements. There is also little to no space for additional shelving within the Invercargill office.

One alternative that has been considered is moving some of the property file collection to Council’s Archives building. This is not seen as a viable option as it would reduce the service levels Council provides for its property file related services.

The current property file shelving is a potential earthquake risk. The shelves are extremely heavy, closer together than good practice dictates and many of the shelving units are not secured and could potentially fall over in a natural disaster.

Business Needs

The desired future state of the property filing system would see the current paper based property filing system replaced with a wholly electronic system with the current paper records scanned and then stored until able to be destroyed. This would completely future-proof Council from physical storage issues and mitigates risks associated with property files.

Digitising the property records will eliminate the need for the current
shelving infrastructure and free a large amount of floor space within the
Knowledge Management department; the regained floor space will be used for the reconfiguration of the Knowledge Management department as the digitisation of property files will result in a changing of the department’s requirements, eg scanning workstations.

The current shelving can be relocated to Council’s Archives building to increase the shelving capacity of this site.

4.1.2 Investment Objective 2: Reduce Property File Associated Risk

Existing Arrangements

Property files contain vital information that are used by staff and viewed by members of the public. This results in property files being routinely taken from the filing system in Knowledge Management and left at desks, stored in Council vehicles, taken out into the field, transported between Council offices or given to members of the public for viewing at a Council office.

This represents a significant risk to Council as the possibility of a loss of records or the exposure of confidential records is quite high.

When a property file is requested of the Knowledge Management department for public viewing, the file is vetted and the confidential component of the file is removed by a Knowledge Management staff member. This is a time consuming manual task with no formal procedure or check to ensure that the correct confidential information and only the correct confidential information is removed. As the property filing system is open to access by all staff, there are occasions where property files are given to members of the public without being vetted by the Knowledge Management department. The overall success of this process is due to the diligence of the members of the Knowledge Management department. Despite this, there are occasions where confidential information can be inadvertently provided to a member of the public or, critical public information can be accidentally removed from a property file for inspection.

The third risk that Council faces in this regard is the loss of property records.
With files regularly taken out into the field, transported between Council offices and left in Council vehicles, there is a potential for Council to lose some or all of the contents of a property file. These records are irreplaceable if lost as the property file is often the only copy Council holds of the records.

A selection of property files are ‘unofficially’ stored outside of the current property filing system. It is estimated that between the Te Anau office and the Gore-based building inspector, up to 300 property files are permanently stored off-site.

These files are at risk of becoming out of date and used by staff or shown to the public without the correct information and are also at a greater risk of loss or damage as they are not afforded the security or protection of being kept within Council’s property filing system.

Business Needs

The desired future state of the property filing system would considerably mitigate these risks as a fully electronic system would ensure that all property file records were permanently stored within TRIM, Council’s electronic documents and records management system (EDRMS). Staff that require access to property files will be able to access these whenever they are connected to Council’s network or via TRIM’s offline records capability. For the purpose of the public viewing of property files, the scope of this project will include the investigation into the viability of property file kiosks in Council offices or the enabling of public viewing of property files via the Council’s website and the implementation of a suitable solution.

The structure of the property files will be reviewed as a part of the digitisation process and a solution that allows for the clear separation of public and private property records, as well as the development of processes and security around the displaying and creation of different types of records will be implemented to mitigate this risk.

4.1.3 Investment Objective 3: Improve Access to Property Files

Existing Arrangements

The business processes that rely upon the property file records are mostly complex processes that rely on several staff spread across multiple departments. The reliance on a single physical property file impedes this process with staff members unable to complete their tasks until the staff member currently in possession of the file completes their own tasks and passes the file to the next person. These delays are commonly reflected throughout the organisation with emails sent to all users attempting to locate a property file. In addition to this delay, staff often spend time attempting to find a properties file and are delayed as they search for the person in possession of the file.

Business Needs

A digitised property filing system will enable multiple staff to access the same property file, at the same time from any location. This will enable process improvements to be made through unrelated tasks that require the property file information being performed in parallel with each other as opposed to the sequential order in which tasks are currently undertaken due to the need to share the property file.

4.2 Potential Scope

At this stage of the project, the high level project scope includes:

a. The scanning of all of Council’s property files.

b. The renumbering of Council’s property files from the current numbering system to the Pathway Property ID.

c. The development of a new property file classification structure and the restructuring of the digital files.

d. Implementing processes for the scanning of new property file records.

e. Altering Knowledge Management business processes from a filing focus to a scanning focus.

f. Removal, storage and agreement to the future destruction of the physical property files.

g. Repurposing of the property filing area within Knowledge Management,
eg scanning workstations and mailroom improvements.

h. Public access to digitised property files.

i. Offline staff access to digitised property files.

The scope of this project excludes:

a. Implementation of electronic application processing.

b. Altering business processes that rely upon property files to accommodate digital property files.

c. Altering or rewriting of staff job descriptions.

d. Renewing or altering of Council’s accreditation as a Building Consent Authority, although it is recognised that members of the project team may be required to assist the relevant staff in ensuring this is retained.

e. Dealing with the legacy issues of Southland District Council Archives. This includes (but is not limited to) any potential digitisation requirements and retention and disposal of inactive records held in the archives.

4.3 Known Issues

Whilst this project delivers many benefits to Council, it also has a considerable impact on the way Council currently conducts some aspects of its business. These impacts are:

a. Public Access To Property Files - Currently when a member of the
public requests to view a property file, the file is vetted by the
Knowledge Management department and either placed in the overnight bag to be sent to the required Area Office or provided to the customer at reception in Invercargill. A digitised property file system will result in Council having to enable customers to view these files electronically, either online or through the use of a computer kiosk in Council’s offices.

b. Access To Property Files In The Field - Currently paper files are taken out in the field for use by staff. Once these records are digitised, access to them would be limited to devices with internet connectivity to allow them to run their virtual desktop. There will need to be an investigation into how offline field access can be enabled.

c. Creation of New Records - Applications that generate new property file records can often be received by Council in paper format. The scope of this project will intentionally exclude significant modification of existing business processes that create property file records. This decision was made as widening the scope to include these is seen as a major risk to project failure. This requires Council to have plans in place to allow it to continue to accept paper records or, as a separate project investigate moving these processes to a paperless model. Continuing to accept paper records would require Council to either have an ongoing relationship with a document digitisation vendor or to purchase scanning equipment that would enable Council to scan larger documents.

d. Archives - The Digitisation Business Case does not address the majority of the records held within the Council Archive. Council Archives is the repository of Southland District Council and its predecessor agencies archives and Southland District Council inactive records. Some building permit related records of the Wallace County Council and Southland County Council are held within the archives and have been included in the scope of this project; however, it is not the intended to or practical to consider digitising all Council archives. The next steps for addressing the issues currently faced with Council Archives include the continuation of documenting all information held in archives; appraisal and description of inactive records; establishing and implementing robust procedures for accepting records into archives, implementing the ALGIM Retention and Disposal Schedule and applying the schedule across all Council records.

4.4 High Level Project Risks

Risk	Probability	Consequence	Mitigation
Damage or Loss of Paper records before digitised	Unlikely	Major	The successful vendor will need to meet required PRA/Archives NZ standard for safe storage and transport of records.
Council is unable to recruit a suitable QA/ record preparation staff member for the duration of the project	Moderate	Minor
Assumption and estimates used by SDC to get quotes from vendors are under or over estimated	Rare	Moderate	Underestimation could result in project costs and duration increasing above those planned.
Vendor unable to deliver as promised or ceases to operate	Unlikely	Moderate	Council will still own the paper property files and no files will be destroyed until the entire property filing system is digitised. In the event that a vendor cannot deliver as promised or ceases to operate, Council would have to recover the property files and identify a new vendor.
Scanned property file does not match paper file	Moderate	Minor	Robust QA processes will be developed for the duration of the project, both by the vendor and by Council before accepting digitised property files into its electronic filing system.
Vendor does not comply with Public Records Act and Archives NZ mandatory standards	Rare	Moderate	The vendor selection process will ensure that vendors can meet the required legislative requirements and standards.
Users not willing to work electronically generating more paper or expecting paper copies of digital records to be scanned and stored	Likely	Minor	This will need to be actively managed through communication, education and the clear setting of expectations of staff working with electronic property files. The work around business process improvement and ProMapp may help to identify potential problem areas.
Project Scope Creep	Almost Certain	Moderate	A clearly defined project scope statement will be developed and approved by the ELT prior to project planning commencing and a robust analysis and approval process for all requests to alter the scope will be included.
Project fails to meet milestones/adhere to schedule	Likely	Insignificant	Regular progress reporting will be provided to the ELT and any slippage and the impact of that slippage can be discussed and resolved as required through the projects change management process.
Project exceeds budgeted cost thresholds	Moderate	Major	Project costs will be tracked and reported back as a part of the progress reporting.

5 Available Options

Within the potential scope of this proposal, the following long-list options were identified and assessed.

5.1 Option 1: Maintain the Status Quo

This is the option of doing nothing and continuing to use the current paper based system and processes.

5.1.1 Advantages

The advantages of maintaining the status quo are:

• This option is the lowest cost option.

5.1.2 Disadvantages

The disadvantages are:

a. Does not resolve any of the issues identified in the Investment Objectives section of this document.

b. Is not a truly valid option as there is only sufficient shelf space to accommodate the continued growth of the property filing system until late October 2014. This requires Council to take some form of action prior to this date, and there are limited options available to continue to increase the shelving space.

5.2 Option 2: Single Year Digitisation

Single year digitisation is the process of sending all the property files to a digitisation provider and having them scanned and returned electronically within a single financial year.

5.2.1 Advantages

The advantages are:

a. Digitisation is completed in the fastest timeframe possible.

b. Enables Council to move to a wholly electronic property filing system.

c. The property filing area in the Invercargill office is emptied and the space can be utilised immediately.

5.2.2 Disadvantages

The disadvantages are:

a. This option represents the largest upfront cost of all the options as the entire cost of the project is incurred in a single year.

b. Access to a property file that has not been scanned will incur a delay as it is processed.

5.3 Option 3: On Request Digitisation

On request, digitisation would involve the property files being stored off-site by the digitisation service provider and as property files are required for use at Council the property file is scanned and sent electronically to Council within agreed timeframes.

5.3.1 Advantages

The advantages are:

a. Property files are scanned as required. This means that the property files that Council staff need will be scanned first.

b. The property filing area in the Invercargill office is emptied and the space can be utilised immediately.

5.3.2 Disadvantages

The disadvantages are:

a. Access to a property file that has not been scanned will incur a delay as it is processed.

b. There will be additional costs related to the long term storage of the property files by the digitisation service provider.

5.4 Option 4: Geographically Targeted Digitisation

This option has been raised as a method of targeting geographical areas that are considered high use or are where the majority of property file related tasks are undertaken. This method would result in a hybrid semi-digitised, semi-paper based system that would gradually be reduced to a fully digitised system as lower use property is digitised over time.

5.4.1 Advantages

The advantages are:

• High use areas would be scanned first.

5.4.2 Disadvantages

The disadvantages are:

a. In targeting a geographic area, there will be a mix of high use property files and low use property files scanned and other high use property files outside of the targeted geographic zones would not be digitised.

b. Targeting specific geographic areas would result in a hybrid system where there were different processes for different properties based upon their geographic region and a mix of electronic and paper property files.

c. The floor space in Knowledge Management would not be freed up as the majority of paper property files would still be required on-site.

5.5 Option 5: Value Based Targeted Digitisation

This approach is similar to the geographic approach but rather than identifying a geographic area the basis of this option is that a measure be designed to value each property file based on its likelihood of being requested and the highest value properties are digitised first.

5.5.1 Advantages

The advantages are:

• Ensures that the highest use properties are scanned first.

5.5.2 Disadvantages

The disadvantages are:

a. It would result in a hybrid paper and electronic system that could lead to confusion and require Knowledge Management to run multiple business processes.

b. Complex and potentially time consuming to develop the model to assess a property files value.

5.6 Option 6: Internally Resourced Digitisation

Internally resourced digitisation is the purchasing of the necessary equipment and resources to undertake the digitisation project in-house.

5.6.1 Advantages

The advantages are:

• Develops the skill levels of internal staff.

5.6.2 Disadvantages

The disadvantages are:

a. More prone to delays as other priorities could detract from the ongoing scanning work.

b. Could not be resourced with existing staffing levels.

c. Would require the development of the skills and knowledge to undertake the work.

d. Staff turnover could affect the project’s performance.

e. Would require the purchase of scanning equipment that exceeds Council’s regular day-to-day requirements.

6 Shortlisted Options

On the basis of the assessment of the long-list options, the following shortlisted options were constructed and subject to further analysis. This is to determine the preferred option likely to maximise relative value for money and provide the most effective method for Council to digitise its records:

• Option 1: Maintain the status quo or do nothing (retained as a baseline comparator)

• Option 2: Single Year Digitisation

• Option 3: On Request Digitisation

• Option 4: Internally Resourced Digitisation

Each of the shortlisted options are explained in greater detail below.

6.1 Shortlist Option 1: Maintain the Status Quo or Do Nothing

6.1.1 Overview

This option represents the cost of doing nothing. Whilst the option of maintaining the status quo is always considered a valid option, due to the current shortage of shelving space, it is inevitable that some form of action will be required to increase the property filing system storage capacity if it was decided that digitisation was not viable at this time.

An investigation has been undertaken into potential options for increasing the shelving options. Of the two options identified, both were not considered viable options. These were:

a. Replace current shelving with mobile shelving units, or

b. Move some or all of the property filing system to Archives.

Introducing mobile shelving units was found to be infeasible due to the lack of a concrete base for mobile shelving and an inability to backfill our existing subfloor to meet the mobile shelving requirements.

Moving some or all of the property filing system was also not considered a viable alternative as storing the records at the Archives facility would decrease the service levels of property file dependent business processes as the ability for staff to access these files would be significantly reduced. This option would also require a large change to how the Knowledge Management team function with staff having to be permanently based in the Archives facility and increased trips between Archives and the Invercargill office to transport records and property files.

6.1.2 Affordability

Typically this option would not have a cost associated with it but in this situation maintaining the status quo requires that there be an increase in shelving space, presumably at Archives.

Due to this not being a truly viable option and the large amount of change that is required to make this option work, an estimated budget is not provided.

To make this option work, it would require the relocation of the property files and two full-time staff to the Archives facility. The cost of relocating the files and increasing their storage space, as well as making the Archives facility a suitable building for staff to permanently work in, would result in potentially substantial costs.

6.2 Alignment with investment objectives

6.2.1 Investment Objective 1: Eliminate Physical Space Demands

This option does not contribute to the objective of eliminating the physical space demands. Council’s current property filing system will reach capacity in late 2014. Choosing to do nothing will require Council to expand the property filing area in the Invercargill office to accommodate future growth.

6.2.2 Investment Objective 2: Reduce Property File Associated Risk

This option does not reduce any of the current risks that Council faces in regards to its property file system.

6.2.3 Investment Objective 3: Improve Access to Property Files

This option does not improve the access to Council’s property files.

6.3 Shortlist Option 2: Single Year Digitisation

6.3.1 Overview

This is the process of Council sending all property files to a digitisation service provider and the provider undertaking the digitisation of these records over a 6-12 month period.

To ensure that the options outlined in this document could be best estimated and viable preferred options of potential suppliers, a Request for Information (RFI) process was undertaken. The RFI results provided feedback and cost estimates for Options 2, 3 and 4. The respondents almost unanimously recommended Option 2 as a preferred and moderately cheaper option when compared to Option 3. To ensure that Council could access the digitised property files when required, an element of scan on demand was also generally a service that could be included as a part of this option.

The way this would work is that Council would agree to a set volume of property files per week that would ensure the project was completed within a defined timeframe. This allowed the vendor to allocate dedicated resource to the project and this usually resulted in the vendor providing a lower cost to undertake the work. The agreement with the vendor would also allow for ‘urgent’ requests for a digitised property file to be requested and returned within a designated timeframe. These timeframes ranged from one, four and 24 hours for electronic delivery of the required file.

6.3.2 Affordability

Product/Service	Cost	Source of estimate
Digitisation of property files	$950,000	Based on RFI figures
HP TRIM upgrade	$50,000	Based on previous upgrades costs
File preparation and QA Resource	$45,000	Based on existing salary for similarly skilled employee
Website enhancement	$100,000	Analogous estimate based on website redevelopment project in 2013
Shelving removal, office reconfiguration and installation at Archives	$10,000	Analogous estimate based on similar work
Offline staff access to property files	$30,000	Analogous estimate based on similar software acquisitions
Contingency	$177,750.00	15% of Sub-total
Total	$1,362,750.00

NB: All estimates in the above table are considered preliminary estimates and definitive estimates will be developed with further project planning.

6.4 Alignment with investment objectives

6.4.1 Investment Objective 1: Eliminate physical space demands

Option 2 immediately alleviates the physical space demands as at the commencement of the project the property files will be removed from the Invercargill office and sent to the digitisation service provider or an agreed storage facility.

6.4.2 Investment Objective 2: Reduce property file associated risk

This option represents the least possible risk to Council as the property files are digitised in the shortest period of time in comparison to the other shortlisted options.

6.4.3 Investment Objective 3: Improve access to property files

The scope of this project includes the development of an online property file viewing web application. This will enable customers to view property files online either at home or on any public access computer, eg public access computers in Council’s libraries.

6.5 Shortlist Option 3: On Request Digitisation

6.5.1 Overview

The on-request digitisation option involves sending all the property files to a digitisation service provider and the provider undertaking the digitisation of a property file only when Council requested the file to be digitised. With approximately 3,500 - 4,500 property files accessed each year, this would spread the total cost and duration of the project over a five year period with the fifth year including the scanning of any unrequested files to complete the project.

Feedback from the vendors that submitted to the RFI option indicated that this was a viable option but that the unreliability of volume on a weekly basis would result in higher costs to undertake the work, as well as a higher storage cost as property files would remain in storage for up to five years.

6.5.2 Affordability

Product/Service	Cost	Source of estimate
Digitisation of property files	$1,000,000	Based on RFI figures
HP TRIM upgrade	$50,000	Based on previous upgrades costs
File preparation and QA Resource	$45,000	Based on existing salary for similarly skilled employee
Website enhancement	$100,000	Analogous estimate based on website redevelopment project in 2013
Shelving removal, office reconfiguration and installation at Archives	$10,000	Analogous estimate based on similar work
Offline staff access to property files	$30,000	Analogous estimate based on similar software acquisitions
Contingency	$185,250.00	15% of Total
Sub-total	$1,420,250.00

NB All estimates in the above table are considered preliminary estimates and definitive estimates will be developed with further project planning.

6.6 Alignment with investment objectives

6.6.1 Investment Objective 1: Eliminate physical space demands

Option 3 immediately alleviates the physical space demands as at the commencement of the project the property files will be removed from the Invercargill office and sent to the digitisation service provider or an agreed storage facility.

6.6.2 Investment Objective 2: Reduce property file associated risk

This option does mitigate the described property file risk, however, in comparison to shortlist Option 2, the overall project risk is higher. With Council’s paper based property files being held in storage by a third party over five years there is a greater risk of loss or damage to those files. Additionally, there is greater potential for the quality of the work provided by the digitisation provider to be of a lesser quality as they cannot necessarily dedicate their resources to a purely on request scanning effort.

6.6.3 Investment Objective 3: Improve Access To Property Files

The scope of this project includes the development of an online property file viewing web application. This will enable customers to view property files once digitised, online either at home or on any public access computer, eg public access computers in Council’s libraries.

6.7 Shortlist Option 4: Internally Resourced Digitisation

6.7.1 Overview

The option of using internal resources to digitise the property filing system has been adopted by some Council’s. The premise of this approach is that Council would purchase the necessary equipment and resources to enable the digitisation of the property filing system.

Marlborough District Council (MDC) initially implemented an in-house pilot project for digitisation and used the pilot to outline the costs and resources required to complete the project. The figures MDC developed are included as Appendix 3.

The MDC figures show that internally resourced digitisation would require a significant investment in equipment and staff resources. Much, if not all, of the equipment and staff resources would be redundant at the completion of the project.

This option, upon further analysis, also created several issues around the operation of what was termed a hybrid paper/electronic property filing system. This arises because the property filing system would still be present and presumably accessible to all staff which would necessitate the paper based filing system being retained as the single source of truth for all unscanned files. This would lead to a situation where staff would have duplicate processes for the handling of digitised and non-digitised files and a paper based property filing system that was still increasing in size during the digitisation project.

6.7.2 Affordability

To determine the costs of undertaking internally resourced digitisation against single year and on request digitisation, two examples are presented below - single year internal digitisation and five year internal digitisation. These two estimates reflect the time periods of the other shortlisted options.

Appendix 3 contains the workings for how these estimates were developed.

Single Year Internal Digitisation

Product/Service	Cost	Source of estimate
Digitisation staff	$765,000	MDC report (17 staff at $45,000 per annum)
Digitisation staff supervisors	$110,000	Two staff at $55,000 per annum
File preparation and QA Resource	$45,000	Based on existing salary for similarly skilled employee
Shelving removal, office reconfiguration and installation at Archives	$10,000	Analogous estimate based on similar work
Offline staff access to property files	$30,000	Analogous estimate based on similar software acquisitions
Website enhancement	$100,000	Analogous estimate based on website redevelopment project in 2013
HP TRIM upgrade	$50,000	Based on previous upgrades costs
Office equipment	$40,000	Rough estimate $2,000 per user
TRIM licensing	$25,000	Based on previous purchases (20 TRIM licences and 20 Kofax licences)
Kofax licensing	$509,248	Eight users at $2,300 per user, TRIM connector $3,548, Field extraction $465,300, Volume count $22,000
Scanning equipment	$137,480	Pricing from Canon (eight scanners, $11,000 per scanner and one large format scanner $24,740)
Contingency	$273,259.20.20	15% of Total
Total Cost	$2,094,987.40.20

Five Year Internal Digitisation

Product/ Service	Cost	Source of estimate
Digitisation staff	$900,000	MDC report (four staff at $45,000 per annum)
Digitisation staff supervisors	$275,000	One supervisor at $55,000 per annum
File preparation and QA Resource	$225,000	Based on existing salary for similarly skilled employee
Shelving removal, office reconfiguration and installation at Archives	$10,000	Analogous estimate based on similar work
Offline staff access to property files	$30,000	Analogous estimate based on similar software acquisitions
Website enhancement	$100,000	Analogous estimate based on website redevelopment project in 2013
HP TRIM upgrade	$50,000	Based on previous upgrades costs
Office equipment	$10,000	Rough estimate $2,000 per user
TRIM licensing	$6,250	Based on previous purchases (five TRIM licences and five Kofax licences)
Kofax licensing	$532,748	Four users at $2,300 per user, TRIM connector $3,548, Field extraction $498,000, Volume count $25,000
Scanning equipment	$57,740	Pricing from Canon (three scanners, $11,000 per scanner and one large format scanner $24,740)
Contingency	$329,510.70	15% of Total
Total Cost	$2,526,248.70

6.8 Alignment with investment objectives

6.8.1 Investment Objective 1: Eliminate Physical Space Demands

This option does not immediately solve Council’s property file storage issues as it is presumed the files would remain on-site at least until digitised. However, once the property file is digitised it could be stored at Archives to allow for a gradual recovery of storage space as the project progresses.

6.8.2 Investment Objective 2: Reduce Property File Associated Risk

Once the property files are completely digitised, the risks associated to a paper based property filing system will be mitigated. Like Option 3, the achievement of this investment objective will take the lifespan of the project which could be up to or more than five years.

6.8.3 Investment Objective 3: Improve Access to Property Files

The scope of this project includes the development of an online property file viewing web application. This will enable customers to view property files once digitised, online either at home or on any public access computer e.g. public access computers in Council’s libraries.

7 Preferred Option

The preferred option is Option 2, single year digitisation because this option enables Council to undertake the project in the shortest amount of time possible, reducing the risk of project failure, for the lowest possible price and to completely achieve the investment objectives of undertaking this project.

7.1 Alignment with the investment objectives

Shortlist Option	Investment Objective One	Investment Objective Two	Investment Objective Three
Maintain the status quo or do nothing	û	û	û
Single Year Digitisation	ü	ü	ü
On Request Digitisation	ü	ü	ü
Internally Resourced Digitisation	û	ü	ü

8 Procurement Approach

There are several services and products required to be procured to undertake the project. The below section outlines how it is proposed Council procures these.

8.1 Digitisation Services

This is the service of performing the digitisation of Council property file records.
This service covers the following:

a. Project set-up costs

b. Freight for sending property files

c. Destruction of paper files

d. Storage of property files

e. Preparation of files for scanning

f. Scanning of property files

The intended approach to procure these services is to undertake a
Request for Proposal process to identify the most suitable vendor and enter negotiations with them to ensure Council receives the best service for the best price.

8.2 Property File Structuring and Quality Assurance Resource

A key component of the success of this project is ensuring that the files that are sent to the digitisation service provider have been structured to conform to the standard required for our building consent accreditation. Currently a large amount of Council’s files do not conform to this standard and this is resolved by the Knowledge Management team as and when a non-conforming property file is required by staff or a document is required to be filed on to the property file.

To ensure that the digitisation provider receives files that are structured consistently, it is proposed that a fixed term employee be engaged to ensure the file structure is consistent before the files are sent to the digitisation provider as this will reduce their preparation time and increase the accuracy of their scanning effort. Once the files are returned electronically, this same resource will fulfil the role of importing the files to trim and undertaking quality assurance checks to ensure that the digital property files’ contents match the paper versions and are structured correctly with the correct metadata.

It is proposed that Council’s standard recruitment processes be used to recruit this temporary staff member.

8.3 Website enhancement

A key component to the success of this project will be the development of a web based property file viewing portal. The portal will enable customers to search and view the public information held on a property file. Once the detailed requirements of this are developed, the intended approach to procure these services is to undertake a Request for Proposal process to identify the most suitable vendor and enter negotiations with them to ensure Council receives the best service for the best price.

8.4 Business as usual scanning

The scope of this project does not include the implementation of electronic processing of applications as its inclusion to the scope makes the project significantly more complex and therefore at greater risk of project failure.

Whilst it is hoped that a separate project to receive and process applications can be undertaken in-line with the timeframes of this project, at this point in time one of the deliverables of this project is the development of a business as usual scanning service to ensure that any paper applications or documents created can be scanned and placed on the digitised property file.

There are no outlay costs to implementing this process change as Council’s existing scanning technology and staff can undertake the work required and where large format documents (A2, A0 or larger) are required to be scanned local printing and copying businesses are able to provide the required services at nominal operational cost to Council.

8.5 HP TRIM upgrade

Council currently uses an older version of TRIM and in talking with digitisation service providers and Council’s TRIM support contractors it is highly recommended that TRIM be upgraded to the latest version of TRIM, HP Records Manager 8.

Council already has a support agreement with Infocentrik for TRIM and they have performed prior upgrades of Council’s TRIM environment. It is proposed that they be engaged to perform the upgrade for Council.

8.6 Offline staff access to property files

Once digitised, Council staff that are operating outside of Council’s offices will require the ability to view property files. Many of these staff already use tablet computer devices and with upgrading to TRIM Records Manager 8, there is an availability of an HP developed mobile client as well as several third party developed clients for mobile computing.

The project team, in conjunction with the relevant stakeholder parties, will review which software best meets Council’s needs and will purchase the required software through Council’s standard procurement process.

8.7 Shelving removal, office reconfiguration and installation at Archives

Once the property files are moved off-site, the current shelving in the
Knowledge Management department is to be relocated to the Archives facility.
This work can be undertaken either by the community taskforce team or by Phoenix Services, the service provider for Hyde store shelving.

9 Funding

There is currently $1,500,000 funding for this project within the 10090 -
Knowledge Management business unit for the 2015/2016 financial year. The project has been funded by way of internal loan over 10 years.

The breakdown of this loan is as follows:

Year	Principal	Interest
2016/2017	$111,692	$91,166
2017/2018	$118,838	$84,020
2018/2019	$126,441	$76,417
2019/2020	$134,531	$68,327
2020/2021	$143,139	$59,720
2021/2022	$152,297	$50,562
2022/2023	$162,041	$40,818
2023/2024	$172,408	$30,450
2024/2025	$183,439	$19,420
2025/2026	$195,174	$7,683
Sub-total	$1,500,000.00	$528,583.00
Total		$2,028,583

9.1 Recovering the Project Cost

Approximately one-third of territorial authorities in New Zealand currently charge a fee for the inspection of property files. For many councils, this is done to recoup some or all of the costs of their property file digitisation efforts. The average cost for viewing a property file from these councils is $27.90, with inspection fees charged at set rates between $5.00 - $77.00 or an hourly charge $30.65 per hour of file preparation time as charged by Waimakariri District Council.

At present, Council provides approximately 1,040 property files for viewing to members of the public every year. If Council was to charge $45.00 (the approximate cost of digitising a property file), we could recoup approximately $46,800 per annum towards the project. This fee could be implemented for the duration of the project or could be extended indefinitely and the proceeds used to fund future improvements to property file related business processes and services.

10 Management Arrangements

The relevant project management and governance arrangements are proposed to be as follows:

Project Role	Name
Sponsor	Damon Campbell
Project Manager	Gillian Cavanagh
Project Team	File preparation and QA fixed term employee Andrew Kinloch - Business Analyst/Project Analyst Digitisation Service Provider Other staff and contract resource as required
Project Steering Group	All stakeholders identified in Appendix 1

11 Next Steps

a. In the event that this business case receives formal approval, a project will be established to deliver the required services, with a detailed project plan developed.

b. The preliminary milestones identified are:

Date	Milestone
5 August 2015	Report to APAC
20 September	Recruit Fixed Term Position
	Detailed Projected - 1 month
26 October 2015	Project Plan to ELT
	EDRMS Review - 2 months
	Upgrade TRIM (Assumption and Risk) - 3 months
	Website enhancement - 6 months
	TRIM mobility client - 3 months
	Property files prepared to be sent for scanning - 12 months
	Property files sent to Digitisation Vendor
	Historic Permits, Field Sheets and Microfiche sent to Digitisation Vendor

Council	Fees	Comment
Auckland Council	CD - $50.00 Online - $30.00 In person - $20.00
Tauranga City Council	CD - $40.00	Other options are not available; CD is the only viewing method
Western Bay of Plenty Council	CD - $35.00
Rotorua District Council	CD - $25.00 In person - $20.00
Waimakariri District Council	In person - $30.65 cents per hour of preparation time before viewing
Christchurch City Council	CD - $33.00
Ashburton District Council	In person - $15.00
Waimate District Council	In person - $35.00
Central Hawkes Bay District Council	In person - $30.00
Manawatu District Council	CD - $35.00 In person - free of charge
Tasman District Council	In person - $10.00
Nelson City Council	In person - $20.00
Marlborough District Council	CD - $20.00 Online - free of charge In person - free of charge

Activities Performance Audit Committee

5 August 2015

Description: sdclogo

Library Activities

Record No: R/15/7/12561

Author: Lynda Hodge, Manager - District Library

Approved by: Bruce Halligan, GM - Environment and Community

☐ Decision ☐ Recommendation ☒ Information

The purpose of this report is to provide the Committee with an update on recent Library Services trends and activities.

Library Usage

1 Actual issues at the Southland District Council branches have increased the past year from 245,573 in 2013/2014 to 276,487 in 2014/2015 - an increase of 12.58%. These figures are captured from the Symphony library computer system and do have a margin for error as not all libraries are computerised so the figures are a combination of statistics from the Symphony system ( for Winton, Te Anau, Riverton, Lumsden, Nightcaps, Otautau, Wyndham and Bookbus) and manual counts from the non-computerised libraries ( Stewart Island, Tuatapere, Manapouri, Gropers Bush and other outreach services). Refer attachments A, B and C.

2 As Stewart Island, Tuatapere, the Community Libraries at Manapouri, Gropers Bush and other outreach services are not on a computer system, nor do they use any other form of electronic recording, figures for some are not available; a similar situation exists with door counts. However, in some cases it is possible to compare activity.

Place	Issues	Door Count
Winton	70,746	44,716
Te Anau	36,490	50,844
Riverton	16,924	19,532
Wyndham	9,225	5,577
Otautau	9,375	19,311
Lumsden	8,086	20,790

3 Winton and Wyndham are the two areas where issues exceed door count figures and this can probably be explained by a less transient population although certainly internet and Wi-Fi usage in Winton continues to be high.

4 The high door counts at Te Anau, Lumsden and Otautau confirm the trend of many users who do not actually borrow items but come to use the Internet and WiFi, read newspapers get local information, recharge their electronic devices and ask for general information from the staff.

5 Te Anau experiences the highs and lows of tourist traffic as does Stewart Island but, unfortunately recordings are not available for the latter. Throughout the District there have been 74,080 individual Internet and Wi-Fi sessions recorded and this service has become an integral expectation of Library Services worldwide. For many travellers, the local Public Library is where they immediately head to update their messages, report home and use the toilet.

6 Despite anxiety from some users, the change to the carrying capacity of the Bookbus has not seen a reduction in issues - the same overall increase applies here. Changes made to the route have seen a number of new members register and demonstrates Southland District Council’s responsiveness to community changes. In the areas where the Bookbus stop has been disestablished the borrowers have been tracked. Several have moved to branch library usage and others have simply followed the Bookbus - in these cases there was very little different in travel time or distance for them. The school stops in most areas work very well however there a small number which are less well used despite a number of approaches to school staff and times set to suit school hours.

7 Popular fiction still continues to be borrowed in high numbers. The ratio of fiction to
non-fiction issues in most branches is 3:1 although Te Anau is slightly lower than this. Unfortunately children’s non-fiction issues have dramatically dropped over the past five years as they see Google as the source of all information and this is easily accessible in many homes.

8 Although a significant number of new settlers use the libraries on a regular basis, in most cases they are not interested in books in their own language but something which will improve their standard of English. Unfortunately the Filipino collection is not receiving strong usage however every effort is made to promote at all times. It does get used a little by local schools who wish to further develop cultural awareness.

9 E-readers numbers are reasonably static as the free content available is somewhat limited in scope. A national-wide contract is presently being negotiated by National Library of NZ and this may lead to an enhanced range of available titles on the free list - via SDC website - but the accessibility problem still remains with author/publisher contracts.

Southlib Consortium

10 November 2014 saw the end of the five year partnership agreement between members of the SouthLib group being Dunedin and Invercargill City Libraries, Queenstown Lakes/Central Otago and Southland District Libraries, all of whom used the Symphony system with a combined database to manage their library collections and circulations. At that time there were three options for Southland District Council as a member of the Consortium:

1. Join the network of Symphony users operated by National Library.

2. Continue/develop a local network with some or all of original partners.

3. Make a stand alone agreement with the Symphony supplier.

11 The first option appeared to come with a hefty price tag - around $50,000 one-off payment for SDC and increased maintenance costs - but did offer a range of enhancement benefits, including 24/7 support and continued improvements.

12 Option 2 provided an opportunity for Southland District and Invercargill City to simply continue as they had, with slightly reduced charges, and maintenance support coming from ICC. Hence, Option 2 was selected. As maintenance support for the Southlib group had been supplied by ICC for the preceding 5 years , with very few problems, and having regard to the significant unbudgeted upgrade costs for Option 1, the decision was made to progress with Option 2.

13 Option 3 required at least one Library staff member to have a strong technical IT support knowledge and presently this capacity is not available - certainly in terms of any major problems or outages.

14 Dunedin, Queenstown Lakes and Central Otago decided to go with the national network and, for Southland District Council, this has meant that local borrowers have lost direct access to the Library catalogue of those Districts although borrowing from them is unchanged.

15 The SDC agreement with Invercargill Public Library has no time constraints on it and it would be prudent to consider the long-term benefits of the wider scheme (known as Kotui but still operating with the Symphony software). This would give SDC in-built technical support, enhanced search opportunities and, possibly, better reporting functions.

16 Greater surety regarding ongoing maintenance and support for the system would be the real bonus. There is a one-off cost for data conversion of approximately $30,000 and a $12,000 annual increase in maintenance support. However these figures have been subject to decreases as more members join Kotui.

17 Other SouthLib activities continue to encompass circulating large print and audio collections, training initiatives, staff exchanges and general collegial support. Members of SouthLib are also involved in the national working party reviewing Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa - LIANZA - standards for benchmarking of public library service delivery. These standards include guidelines relating to staffing numbers, numbers of item held per capita, space - public, working and storage, hours of opening, collection diversity, funding, data collection and technology

Funding Model

18 Southland District Libraries have a very complicated funding model which involves splits between ward, local and District rates and, whilst based on historical decisions, is now difficult to explain or justify - particularly to local communities who query why they pay different per-head amounts for access to the same services.

19 Finding another local authority which funds their libraries in a manner nearing the complexity of SDC has proved difficult and the predominant funding model is definitely a Uniform Annual Charge. This generally involves all ratepayers paying a standard amount or the same proportional rate on the basis that all users in the District generally have the same level of access to the service.

20 The geographic scope and population spread of SDC does make it more difficult to ensure an equity of service, however changes to the Bookbus Service during the past year combined with the willingness to address any reasonable request does ensure the vast majority of residents can receive a reasonably equitable level of service. The Bookbus provides a level of flexibility and this can allow for tailoring to meet demands and achieve such equity of provision as would be expected if a uniform charging regime applied.

21 Each Library has many variables which make direct cost comparisons difficult and these include renting the building as opposed to SDC ownership, stand-alone service or in conjunction with an Area Office, opening hours, heating, floor area and level of staffing.

22 Any change to be made would affect all ratepayers in the District even though the total amount collected in rates would remain the same whether they pay through district, local or ward rates.

23 A small focus group to look at this could be formed and should possibly include a finance team member, the Library Manager and two or more Councillors. This can be a component of the Library Service delivery review to be undertaken in terms of the provisions of Section 17a of the Local Government Act 2002 to be undertaken in the 2015/2016 financial year.

Staffing

24 There have been changes in staffing during recent months at the District Library. Morag Gray departed to settle in the Waiuku area and a revised position has been filled by Roslyn Gray as Team Leader, Library Services. Roslyn vacated the position of Technical Services Librarian and this has been filled by Amber Nicholson from the University of Otago Library who has moved south for family reasons.

Hot Desks

25 As some Library staff have moved to part-time work it has become possible to provide desk space for visiting staff at Winton and, on a regular basis, a Building Control Officer and a Planner are able to attend to local inquiries and see clients and there is possibly the capacity to extend this a little if necessary. This service has been very well received by members of the public.

Heart Defibrillator

26 Some years ago, following a couple of medical events, a heart defibrillator was provided for the Winton building and has been stored in the staffroom. Building and equipment changes at the local Fire Station have resulted in the move of its defibrillator to the Mitre 10 premises and the Fire Service has requested that the Southland District Council machine be publicly available. Whilst this was always the intent there has been no publicity or promotion of this throughout the Winton area and the Fire Service has undertaken to ensure members of the public are aware of emergency equipment locations as part of their Emergency Management Plan.

Recommendation

That the Activities Performance Audit Committee:

a) Receives the report titled “Library Activities” dated 24 July 2015.

b) Determines that this matter or decision be recognised as not significant in terms of Section 76 of the Local Government Act 2002.

Attachments

a Branch Issues & Renewals July 2014 - June 2015 View

b Library Door Counter Statistics July 2014 - June 2015 View

c Library Door Counter Statistics Graph July 2014 - June 2015 View

Chairperson	Lyall Bailey
	Mayor Gary Tong
Councillors	Stuart Baird
	Brian Dillon
	Rodney Dobson
	John Douglas
	Paul Duffy
	Bruce Ford
	George Harpur
	Julie Keast
	Ebel Kremer
	Gavin Macpherson
	Neil Paterson

Chief Executive	Steve Ruru
Committee Advisor	Fiona Dunlop

Chairperson	Lyall Bailey
	Mayor Gary Tong
Councillors	Stuart Baird
	Rodney Dobson
	John Douglas
	Paul Duffy
	Bruce Ford
	George Harpur
	Julie Keast
	Ebel Kremer
	Gavin Macpherson
	Neil Paterson

7.1	Annual Report 2014/2015 Timetable Record No: R/15/6/10985
	1 Planning and Reporting Analyst Shannon Oliver was in attendance for this item. Miss Oliver advised that the purpose of the report was to provide the key dates for Annual Report 2014/2015 timetable for information. The Committee noted that the Annual Report is a key document for Council. This Annual Report reports on Council’s performance against the 2014/2015 Annual Plan (which is based on the third year of the Council’s Long Term Plan 2012-2022).

	Resolution Moved Cr Dillon, seconded Cr Harpur and resolved: That the Activities Performance Audit Committee: a) Receives the report titled “Annual Report 2014/2015 Timetable” dated 2 July 2015. b) Determines that this matter or decision be recognised as not significant in terms of Section 76 of the Local Government Act 2002.

	Position
Document ID	Digitisation Business Case
Document Owner	Andrew Kinloch
TRIM Reference	R/14/3/3339


	Southland District Council

	Property File Digitisation
	Business Case

Role	Name	Sign-off Date
Project Manager	Gillian Cavanagh
Project Sponsor	Damon Campbell

Stakeholder	Relationship to the Proposal	Representative	Degree of Influence	Current Interest	Stakeholder Management Strategy
Internal
Chief Executive/ Management Team	Key internal decision-maker. Interest in departmental funding, capability and performance	Damon Campbell	High	High
Knowledge Management	Business Owner of Council’s Property Filing System	Gillian Cavanagh	Medium	High
Building Control	Undertake business processes that are reliant on property file information and generate property file content	Kevin O’Connor	High	High
Resource Management	Undertake business processes that are reliant on property file information and generate property file content	Simon Moran	High	High
Water and Waste	Undertake business processes that are reliant on property file information and generate property file content	Ian Evans	Medium	Low
Property Management	Currently store their property management information in the property file	Kevin McNaught	Medium	Medium
Property and Spatial	Manage some electronic property records and are responsible for some property filing duties	Mark Day	Low	Low
Area Offices	Provide property file access to customers in the area offices	Chris Dolan	Low	Low
External
General Public	Requester of Services that use Property Files, eg LIM. Can request property files at any Council office to view.	Louise Pagan	Low	Low

Length of Project	Records to be scanned per day	Required Full-time Staff
1 Year	100	17
2 Years	50	9
3 Years	34	6
10 Years	10	2