Victoria’s local councils are reviewing IT strategies for mobilising ratepayer services among both ratepayers and council staff, a new survey has found. 
The Blink Mobile ratepayer survey, conducted by mobilisation management and deployment platform Blink Mobile, found that 75 percent of local councils in Victoria are actively reviewing strategies which will enable ratepayers to access web-based information from their mobile device. An additional 38 percent of councils plan to incorporate mobile ratepayer services as part of their overall IT strategies over the next 12 months.
These results seem contrary to other findings apparent in the survey that indicated that 29 percent of respondents felt that mobilising council information would be too complex and that accessing council information from their mobile device would be too expensive a process and offer a poor return on investment.
The survey, did however find support for a system that would allow council staff to access intranet information from their mobile device. Among those surveyed, 96 percent believed that enabling field staff to use mobile phones or tablets to access and update intranet systems would add to workplace efficiency.
Another survey finding was that 77 percent of council respondents would favour a single management platform to develop, deploy and manage all their mobile interactions across both ratepayers and staff, as opposed to multiple stand alone mobile ‘point solutions’.
This finding indicates that Victoria’s local councils are becoming more aware of the rapid growth of mobile business applications, says Director of Blink Mobile Darren Besgrove.
“When it comes to all levels of Government it seems to be Councils who are more aware of the convergence in consumer behaviour and mobile technology capability, and how that will drive the mobilising of Council information for the benefit of their ratepayers,” Mr Besgrove said.