The Budget backs local government: now tech needs to keep pace

In this year’s Budget, the federal government committed $3.6 billion in Financial Assistance Grants to councils. This funding is intended to strengthen councils’ financial capacity and support the delivery of essential services for communities. It is a welcome boost as councils continue to be challenged with rate capping, growing asset portfolios while still investing in long-term community service improvements and housing stock.

While grants are important, funding alone won’t determine whether councils succeed in the years ahead. What matters is how councils use it. As councils face increasing service demands with limited resources, the leadership challenge is how to improve long-term productivity while delivering better outcomes for communities.

For many, it means using available funding to simplify operations, redesign processes and invest in technology that removes inefficiencies for staff and residents. When technology investment is paired with process improvement, councils can create lasting value through stronger financial performance, greater organisational capacity and better resident outcomes.

Technology is the foundation for improvement

Technology has become a critical enabler for modern local government. It connects information across departments, reduces manual effort and gives councils better visibility across their operations.

Too often, organisations adapt new technology to fit existing processes, rather than using it as an opportunity to rethink how work gets done. When technology is shaped around siloed ways of working, those silos remain. Councils that fully adopt new technology alongside better, more connected processes are better positioned to create lasting value.

Independent research conducted on local government digital transformation by Intelligent Business Research Services (IBRS) shows how councils increased capacity, reduced costs and improved service delivery by combining tech with operational transformation.

Measuring value and success

The success of transformation efforts should not be measured by implementation alone. It should be measured by the value it creates. The strongest transformation programs generate value across multiple domains, including financial performance, organisational capacity and community outcomes.

This broader perspective matters because councils are not modernising for its own sake. They are investing to deliver better services, make better use of resources and improve outcomes for communities.

What value creation looks like in practice

This latest IBRS research provides strong examples of councils turning technology investments into measurable outcomes.

Take field operations, for example. One council in Western Australia equipped its entire field workforce with tablets integrated into its core systems. As a result, it absorbed the demands of three years of population growth and increased workload without hiring a single additional staff member. This increased organisational capacity, enabling the council to meet growing community demand with existing resources.

The benefits are also felt directly by residents. IBRS also found that digital public forms saved an estimated 75,000 community hours annually. Other councils processed development approvals 47% faster and reduced call centre volumes by 12 to 50% through integrated citizen portals. These outcomes demonstrate how technology can improve service delivery and make interactions with council simpler and faster.

Financial returns are equally compelling. One New Zealand council not only reduced total technology ownership costs by 38% but also achieved a 22% return on investment within four years — showing how new ways of working can free up resources. Another council reduced its annual technology costs by 75%, from $2 million to $500,000, creating genuine financial headroom.

Public money demands accountability

Residents want better, faster services. This means councils must be clear about how technology and transformation investments improve internal operations and community service delivery. This requires setting measures of success up-front, including processing times, approval cycles, cost per transaction and resident satisfaction.

The opportunity is now in front of councils as public funding brings a responsibility to improve services, strengthen operational performance and deliver tangible benefits for residents. Those councils that use today’s funding to invest in technology, modernise operations, streamline service delivery and remove inefficiencies will create benefits that endure long after the grants have been spent.

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