Unlocking Smarter, Adaptive Approaches to Council Services

The cost of everything is rising. Operational costs and the increasing cost to manage and maintain assets are two significant challenges for councils. With technology advancing exponentially, sharing significant wins from implemented projects at councils, advances the whole sector.

This forum focuses on utilisation of technology to unlock additional funding streams to support the increasing cost of council delivery in a practical shift in perspective. It explores how councils can rethink processes, improve visibility across services and use better information to support clearer decision making.

The session brings together two complementary lenses, both improve processes and generate additional revenue. One examines how councils can leverage more value from community infrastructure by improving utilisation, simplifying access and using data to guide pricing. The other looks at how smarter approaches to waste management, can improve service reliability, strengthen contractor performance and develop into a commercial offering. Together, these perspectives highlight how similar principles can be applied across different service areas to address familiar challenges in new ways.

In this Global Insight Forum, participants will hear practical examples of how councils have challenged traditional processes, introduced technology solutions to improve outcomes. The focus is on achievable change, grounded in experience, and relevant to councils of different sizes and contexts.

City of Cincinnati, Ohio

The City of Cincinnati manages a diverse portfolio of community facilities and recognised that improving outcomes required a different way of thinking about access and use. By reviewing internal processes and improving how facilities are promoted and booked, the city has been able to increase utilisation and reposition underused assets for more flexible, shared use.

Digital tools have played an important role by reducing administrative effort and providing clearer insight into demand. This has supported better planning, more sustainable cost recovery and improved community access without sacrificing equity or benefit.

Bayside Council, New South Wales

Bayside Council has applied similar principles to operational service delivery, particularly in waste management. By improving visibility over day-to-day services using technology, the council has strengthened contractor accountability and ensured services delivered align with expectations and costs.

With clearer, real-time information, Bayside Council can respond earlier to issues, reduce complaints and improve service reliability. These approaches are now informing other service areas and have opened opportunities to generate commercial income, helping ease pressure on rates while maintaining service standards.