GIS in Local Government

1
GIS in Local Government

• Ryan Lobo

2
Overview

• Local Government
• GI in local Government
• Examples
• Issues
• Considerations for newer systems
• Conclusion

3
Local Government

• .agency organized to provide and supervise
  administrative, fiscal, and other services to the
  people who reside within its territorial
  boundaries. It is the level of government most
  directly accountable to the public.
• -Microsoft Encarta 2007.
• Three tiers of elected government local, state
  and federal
• In Victoria, there are 79 councils, representing
  around 5 million people.
• varies in size, population, rate base and
  resources
• responsible for over 40 billion worth of assets
  and infrastructure
• all must operate in accordance with the Local
  Government Act
• have four main representative bodies
• Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV)
• Victorian Local Governance Association (VLGA)
• Local Government Professionals (LGPro)
• Australian Services Union (ASU)

4
Why GIS in Local Government?

• Local government is potentially a major user and
  contributor to spatially referenced information
• Such information is considered fundamental
  resource for nation wide implementation
• External Pressure
• Improving government performance has prompted
  local government to look for more efficient ways
• Modernising Government agenda to have all
  transactions with government in electronic format

5
Role of GI in localgovernment

• Service delivery
• Electricity, watersupply dial-before you dig
• Citizen access to information
• Special Charge Schemes, Traffic management
• Customer services
• Socials, Festivals service requests
• Asset management
• Drainage, Park/ Sports Grounds
• Regeneration and development
• Wetland Developments
• Transport accessibility
• Waste management
• Trackers, waste per locale
• Performance management
• Benchmarking, Evaluation

6
Diffusion Theory
Diffusion Theory in Local Government (Dooley,
P.(2001))

• Develop need
• Research Real life situation possibilities
• Diagnose problem
• Instill Client intent to change
• Intent to action
• Stabilise adoption/ prevent discontinuance
• Achieve terminal relationship

Innovation Development process (Adapted from
Rogers(1995))
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Why do we need bettergeographic information?

• Links for government use
• Joined up information (inter-system-inter-agency-i
  nter-department l- communication)
• Integrated and seamless services
• Web accessibility
• Reuse Efficiency savings
• E- government national priorities
• Legal compliance (FOIFreedom of information, PSI,
  MSA, TMA)
• Meta database
• Records all information
• Facilitates access to information
• Eg- GIGateway (www. gigateway. org. uk )
• Complies with standard (UKGEMINI)
• Metagenie ( metadata creation software)

8
Examples of GIS in Local Government- Victoria

• Whittlesea
• Most of its area is rural (about 70)
• experienced high growth through metropolitan
  planning schemes
• Planning and Development Directorate consists of
  three units
• strategic planning dealing with a 15-50 years
  time horizon with infrastructure, greenfield
  development, growth areas, and population
  statistics, and comprising land use,
  environmental, and social planning branches
• planning services dealing with statutory aspects
  of planning, e.g., development applications and
  appeal process, certification of subdivisions,
  preparation of planning schemes, policies, and
  guidelines, and their enforcement
• building permitting and code enforcement.
• Nillumbik
• Amalgamation 4 councils healesDimnd val Eltham
  whitt
• no operational GIS
• CAD/Engineering section that had a lot of digital
  data
• problems matching parcels of land to properties
  in the Council's rates database
• Paper based documents being transferred
• each amalgamated council had stored their data in
  a different system/format
• Presently 350 layers of information

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Examples of GIS in Local Government- Victoria

• White Horse
• Planning and Development Directorate consists of
  three units
• Information on urban environment and land, such
  as suburbs
• Data on transportation and utility infrastructure
  and community facilities is developed in-house
• Data and applications needed to support only
  limited government functions
• environmental data originates from mixed sources
• slow to join the statewide Property Information
  Project, primarily because it already had parcel
  and property data whose update was easier to
  handle locally
• Overall
• Planners find that state level data are relevant
  in supporting regional analyses, but has limited
  suitability for local planning needs.
• data from the state sources are compatible (AMG)
  and in exchangeable data formats
• the property and cadastral base are complemented
  by local aerial photography captured on a regular
  basis
• GIS operations are housed under the Corporate
  Services Information Management unit
• PIP (Property Information Project) was introduced
  by the State government and adopted by Council,
  we were able to use the online title searching
  facility
• Today time formatting and loading new data on the
  GIS

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Examples of GIS in Local Government-
International

• Belo Horizonte, Brazil
• One did not rely on international technology
  transfer but build in-house expertise over a long
  period of time.
• Organization setup dedicated completely to the
  development of geoprocessing expertise to support
  municipal administration in Belo Horizonte.
• The systematic and integrated manner in which the
  database has been build.
• Cebu, The Philippines
• make decisions independently without government
  intervention
• move away from low-end digital cartography to
  higher-end GIS solutions
• Lilongwe City Council, Malawi
• professional staff with GIS knowledge and
  computer literacy
• availability of good quality base maps or methods
  for map updating
• a more gradual introduction of (spatial)
  information technology into the organization
• the need for very substantial staff development
  programs aimed at raising and maintaining skill
• the need to identify means of cost recovery and
  reserving finances for future system
• General problems
• Technical barriers computer skill
• Financial barriers doubtful financial support
• Institutional barriers not well motivated staff
  poor organisation

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Issues

• Technical Issues
• Requires a compatible Database implementation
  (Access, SQL or Oracle)
• Restrictions to be able to handle change only
  updates
• Storage and networks Size of data rendering
  method
• Polygonization for data on boundaries
• Compliance characteristics for locally collected
  data
• Interoperability
• Accuracy, Reliability .compliance

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Cost / Benefits

• Cost
• Building of database infrastructure
• System integration
• Data/ layer overlap
• Implementing change
• Benefits
• Controlled access meets system security and
  records management guidelines
• Improved efficiency as data are made centrally
  available via an integrated GI Infrastructure
• Service improvement as systems can be joined up
  with geographic information in a database
  (interoperability (file independent)
• Better informed decision making (data of higher
  quality having greater appeal)

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Considerations - New systems

• Cleaner data (polygonisation and topology versus
  lines)
• Colours versus black, red, blue lines
• Seamless dataset versus tiles
• Database versus file based
• GML versus NTF
• Change only updates versus full replacement
• Organised into Layers and Themes
• Layers required
• Topography
• Address
• Imagery
• Integrated Transport Network

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Considerations - New systems

• E- government National priorities
• Public access to corporate Geographic Information
  Systems (GIS) for map- based data to present
  property- related information (G5)
• web- based interface that will draw spatial
  information from a range of other corporate
  systems
• Notification and Editing Service (NES)
• August 26, 2008, GITA Conference, Sydney
• correct or update the authoritative mapping data
  directly
• eSpatial, 1Spatial, Geomatic Technologies (GT),
• National initiatives requiring GIS
• where is my nearest service,
• planning applications,
• road works,
• regulatory services,
• Licensing
• Interoperability
• System Integration Combination of data Reuse
  of information

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Examples- Applications

• Video links
• Defect correction process
• Road design tree loss
• Jurisdictions
• Notification and Editing Service (NES)
• August 26, 2008, GITA Conference, Sydney
• correct or update the authoritative mapping data
  directly
• eSpatial, 1Spatial, Geomatic Technologies (GT),
• M1, M2, Piq?

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Conclusion

• As the lowest tier of Govt. accountable to those
• below, responsible (based on funding) to those
• above
• Plan
• Use developments careful implementation
• Up-to-date GIS layers
• Ensure funding for present system
• Encourage further input for future plans

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Strategic objectives for managing GIS

• Define needs
• Identify GI requirements
• Datasets
• Processes
• Create a schema
• Standardize processes and protocols
• for sharing information and for legal and
  commercial compliance
• Communicate GI
• Generate wider awareness and understanding of GI
• Facilitate access to GIS
• Promoting use of metadata
• Build system reliance
• Seek commitment and governance for the
  implementation of the strategy from senior
  decision makers

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• Issues
• Drainage additions
• Road data update
• Questions???