Council builds trust

Website helping lift veil to provide greater transparency

TOWNSVILLE City Council is charting a course to become more open and transparent by providing more information about its services and other relevant data online.

Already, it has introduced an emergency management dashboard website – disaster. townsville. qld. gov. au – which collates information about road conditions, weather warnings and power outages from multiple sources.

CEO Adele Young told the council this week this kind of approach would give people the power to see what services were provided and improve the quality of their lives.

It would not only allow instant transparency but help drive council performance, she said.

Brisbane- based information and data specialist GWI has been engaged to advise the council on a program of open government.

One of the firm’s representatives, Neil Glentworth, presented to councillors at its ordinary meeting this week, praising the council’s approach.

Mr Glentworth said there was significant frustration among people around the world at being unable to interact with government and “see what was going on behind closed doors”.

Lack of trust was a key issue for governments, particularly in Australia where some of the deepest falls in trust in government had been recorded, he said.

“If open councils are providing data in real time, you can actually win over far more trust,” Mr Glentworth said.

“Councils that take data seriously are those councils that are succeeding and Townsville is one of the leading lights taking it very seriously.”

Mr Glentworth said governments in the US were having great success providing online dashboards about crime, housing costs and comparisons on costs with other councils.

A report by t he State Government’s Office of t he Inf ormation Commissioner, released earlier t his year, i dentified serious shortcomi ngs i n Townsville City Council’s dealings on Right t o Information and Privacy l aws.

But the council said the findings covered periods before its restructure in mid- 2017 and that many of the shortcomings were legacy issues.