North Shore seeks IT solution

By ADAM GIFFORD

The North Shore City Council is in the market for a new financial management information system as its 20-year old one is no longer supported.

Chief information officer Tony Rogers said a shortlist was being prepared, with a decision due by November and the go-live date next July.

The total cost will be about $1 million, which seems to rule out tier one vendors such as SAP and PeopleSoft, whose systems are used in Auckland City and Manukau respectively.

"I doubt if it will be tier one, that is a bit rich for it," Rogers said. "There are a number of packages out there that are well tried and proven in a local government situation."

The system will include core financials, procurement, human resources and project and contract management modules.

The existing Total Corporate Solution package uses a mid-range IBM AS/400 server. Rogers said the new system would need to run on a Microsoft SQL Server database.

It would need to integrate closely with the council's other core systems, which include Geac Pathway land information, Dataworks document management and Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) ArcInfo geographic information systems.

"We have had an enterprise architecture plan in place for five years. This financial replacement is the last major application deployment," Rogers said.

North Shore, which has 70,000 ratepayers and a population of about 205,000, has been forward-thinking in its use of IT.

This year it won special achievement award from ESRI for its website, which includes a geographic information systems viewer allowing people to look at aerial photos, survey plans, services maps and other information.

"We believe this is public information which should be freely available, and it saves the time they would otherwise spend ringing city hall," Rogers said.

Much work had been done to enable a fast roll-out, with teams working out their requirements.