This project is progressing well. Piloting of the system has been delayed because it has taken a little longer to specify the system interfaces. Staff at Councils have not been available because of LTCCP and rate modelling commitments. Testing is now expected to commence in June with all sites still expected to go live by the end of this year.

Over the last few weeks we have been experiencing a number of phone system issues.

The causes have been varied but the upshot is that customers, suppliers etc are not always getting answered.

This is not good business.

While we did experience problems as a result of a damaged cable in Telecom’s network a number of problems have been experienced as a consequence of the failure of components in Council’s PABX.

The PABX we have was installed in early 1991. At 13 years of age it has lasted very well for a piece of technology. Functionally it has been performing quite well and this is a reflection of the excellent choice made back in 1991.

The replacement of the system was on our 2 year schedule but with the current spate of problems and difficulties obtaining support we have to accelerate our plans for replacement of the system.

In conjunction with the replacement of the phone system we need to consider the software needed to fully support the Customer Contact Centre. Our current system does not provide for adequate reporting and monitoring. We had intended to look at a modular upgrade with the Contact Centre being upgraded and then migrating the rest of the organisation over a 2 year period.

That strategy is being questioned while we experience issues with our current system.

We do have a call logging system but it resides in a proprietary system which does not allow current toolsets to access and interrogate it. It provides very basic data and employs old technology to retrieve the information. We are currently running this on an old server as it cannot be upgraded to the current hardware.

We have had preliminary discussions with some vendors and other Councils which have recently gone through the exercise of upgrading their entire telephony (phone) systems.

We have scheduled a Health Check for our current system and should have the results available by the meeting so I can give you a verbal update on the diagnosis.

Irrespective of the outcome of the health check we have accelerated the analysis and assessment of a replacement system as a priority.

Systems have been performing adequately.

Virus and worm activity has remained at very high levels. The most intense period was earlier this week with 112 emails received in a 3 minute period. Spam is also on the increase. There have not been any identified infections of our site.

With staff absences this month there has been limited progress on new initiatives. Primary effort has been the work on displaying the rating impacts and valuations shifts via the GIS. The team did a great job with this and it shows the real potential of the GIS for analysis. One new initiative that is scheduled for April is the release of a Digital Terrain Model and contours for the district. We have received the data from our supplier and should have this available to all staff via the GIS by the end of the month. This will be very helpful to Asset Managers and Building Officers.

Attached are the Statements of Net Cost of Service, Statement of Support Costs, Statement of Financial Performance for the 9 months ended 31 March 2004.

Net Support costs are $2,000 under year to date budget which is made up of expenditure $17,000 under budget and revenue $15,000 under budget.

External recoveries are under budget and the principle reason is the elimination of the recovery ex Environment Waikato once they implemented direct rating from 1 July 2003.

Re the Summary Statement of Cost of Services.

Total Cost of Service is down by $280,000 or 2.1%. Roading and Wastewater are the main areas under spent while Parks & Reserves are over budget.

Revenue is currently $190,000 over budget or 2.2%. Solid Waste recoveries and Consent/LIM activity are the main contributors to this result.

Corporate Services Manager