Two Case Study examples, taken from a selection of many… where the CPR database has been used to good effect…

CASE STUDY 1

Policy Problem: To inform and advance the Council’s own rating and financing policy development relating to a forestry/heavy traffic “targeted” rating scenario …

Smart Unitary Council, a medium sized, partly rural New Zealand local authority, was considering the introduction of a targeted “Forestry Rate” … to recover the significant costs of road damage created by heavy logging trucks … that is the wear and tear of this traffic on rural unsealed roads, particularly in wet conditions.

The Council’s subscription to the CPR website resources, supported Smart UC’s analyst/management staff, in conducting their own in-house solution to the problem by giving them access to the following information, all aimed at servicing the required policy analysis … in the form of …

• Principally from NZTA sourced stats, presented in a series of comparative, ranked and ordered peer group reports, for example, base data of the local and national roading network including for instance the proportion of kms of unsealed to sealed kms, road-subsidy levels, roading expenditures, the nature-type of road works ... and more.
• Council annual sourced reports … roading expenditures per person/per ratepayer …road densities/lengths/nature (sealed-unsealed) … and more.
• Sources including moderated extracts (Gold!) of a recent roading assignment conducted by a professional engineering firm, a public domain study into the problem of heavy traffic (of all types including milk tanker and quarrying vehicles) operating on rural unsealed (often wet) roads.
• CPR moderated extracts of a recent Council response to (the engineer’s study and) its rating policy actions.

CASE STUDY 2

Imagine that you (as CEO or as a Senior Council Manager) are attending a “difficult” ratepayer’s public meeting.

A claim is made from one firebrand in the audience … that “my rates must be amongst the highest in the country”

Having recently zipped through all of the tables, graphs and stats of your Councils online customised CPR reports on the subscription website, you recall an extensive data rich section titled … “Comparisons of your Council’s rates”.

Slipping your phone-device out of your pocket, you quickly view this section (and any relevant others) on your phone screen … note: all CPR screens are set to fit all (including cell-phone) formats.

You may well be armed now, with “killer”, independent, verifiable evidence essential for a comeback to your inquisitor-ratepayers … giving residential rates comparisons for your Council within its peer group … and within the NZ Council sector too.

You can, with access to the CPR site, confidently quote these key stats, sourced from independent, qualified and reliable sources informing your audience factually of your Council’s more favourably placed position in terms of comparative residential rates … than your audience seems to believe*.

“Powerful”!

*And the same will be true for many other “Key Council Stats” … other examples are:

• the extensive ranked results such as Council expenditures on all significant activities … also
• for public surveys of ratepayer satisfaction…
• media commendations and funding received … and more.

CASE STUDY 3

Report Generator and Dashboard presentation

The full particulars of these utilities are shown in more detail on the site.