9 August 2023
Media: Rotorua Daily Post
Topic: Liquor licence
Enquiry
Following on from initial enquiry regarding licence for Ambrosia bar, the reporter had the following additional follow-up questions:
- When did the licence expire?
- When was it noticed the licence expired and by whom (operators or the council)?
- When did alcohol stop being sold?
- If the premises was operating without a licence for a period, has there been any further action towards the licence holder for operating without a licence?
- How long will it take for the process of getting a new licence? And what specifically happens - is there a hearing to decide or is it done on papers?
Also, before I let you go, this might be separate to the above matter but I have also heard Social Club wasn't selling alcohol in recent weeks. Can you do a check with the team to see if there's been any suspensions or licence expiries there as well?
Response
From Rotorua Lakes Council DCE Community Wellbeing, Anaru Pewhairangi:
Re When did the licence expire? 14 July 2023
Re When was it noticed the licence expired and by whom (operators or the council)? Please refer this question to the applicant.
Re When did alcohol stop being sold? Please refer this question to the applicant.
Re If the premises was operating without a licence for a period, has there been any further action towards the licence holder for operating without a licence? The Police are the appropriate authority to raise this question with.
Re How long will it take for the process of getting a new licence? And what specifically happens - is there a hearing to decide or is it done on papers? The new application is currently within the public notification period. Given this and its place in the process an estimated timeframe, or confirmation of the outcome cannot be provided. As per any application, in the event that opposition or objection is received, a hearing would be arranged to determine the outcome through the District Licensing Committee.
Re Social Club: There are no suspensions in place and the licence is still current. Any questions as to why alcohol may not be being sold should be directed to the Social Club.
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Media: Local Democracy Reporter
Topic: Council's OneCouncil IT system
Enquiry
Follow up questions to OneCouncil media enquiry – Can I get the cost increase from the 14m has been explained but can you (or whoever) please explain how it got from the $3.4 to the $14m.
Also can you confirmed with me the contract was signed in 2017 (with the 3.4 allocated) but then the below mentions a 2016 contract, and also that it was expected to take 19 and 21 months. But then Colle had said in 2017 it was expected to take 18 months. Geoff Williams also said July 2018 for Phase 2 go-live, which is 16 months from that March announcement.
Also this line here: We recognised back in 2016 that our legacy software no longer supported the size and complexity of our organisation, resulting in staff undertaking time-consuming and manual business processes that have limited council's ability to deliver quality information and effective services to the community.
I don't understand the significance of 2016 if the council started looking in 2013, and decided on OneCouncil in 2015.
Can these points please be clarified
Response
The following information was provided:
Re cost increases from original budget:
With the majority of new IT projects, early adopters work with the programme vendor to develop it which incurs additional costs as a result. This is usually reflected in their commercial agreement up front.
RLC never intended to be an early adopter but became one by default when other councils projects paused. This resulted in additional costs around configuration and design as RLC had to determine best business process- configuration to meet the business needs, rather than adopting other councils processes.
Also as RLC became the first New Zealand council to implement the solution – NZ ways of working and legislative differences had to be worked through with TechOne – resulting in increased timeframes and costs for both parties – which is typical of early adopters.
Additional funding of $3.5m was then sought due to increased resourcing and consultancy costs, arising from the impacts of Covid-19 and increased configuration costs, which also came about from Council being the first in New Zealand to implement the CiA Property and Rating solution. Neither of these two factors were known at the time of setting original budgets.
See below a chart where it shows where these costs were approved by elected members:
Capex - Total Spend | Approved Funding |
FY 16/17 & 17/18 | 3,456,000 |
FY 18/19 | 1,200,000 |
FY 19/20 | 2,300,000 |
FY 20/12 | 2,900,000 |
FY 21/22 | 3,634,908 |
FY22/23 | 4,922,500 |
18,413,408 |
* Please note the FY22/23 includes additional funding of $3,437.500, approved by Council in May 2023
You will also note that in our previous response to one of your questions, some examples were given of other organisations/Councils whose initial budget for new IT systems have escalated as the project has moved from the planning stage to implementation.
Re is the council aware of how its implementation of the system differs to other councils in the country using OneCouncil? (What aspects other than the rating solution)?
A google search will reveal there are other Councils/Orgnaisations paid substantially more for other products attached link to:
- Waikto Regional Council budgeted for $11.1M revised to $26.4M
- Auckland Supercity in 2015 their ERP project blew out for $71M to $157M
- Three Waters ERP is forcasted to cost $659
Re confirmation of dates:
The contract was signed around the 23 December 2016 and phase one started February 2017 due to Christmas break
We went live in May 2018 with Phase One – embedded phase 1
Phase Two started in August 2019
In between phase 1 and phase 2, we embedded phase 1, the project team started planning phase 2 which was working with the business gathering user stories and understanding current business process.