The Waitaki District Council's website is sub-standard.
That opinion was roundly expressed by councillors at the council's meeting on Wednesday. As councillors approved $155,000 of the council's $400,000 information management programme budget to be spent on online services and website development in 2015-2016, Oamaru Ward councillor Melanie Tavendale said the present website (waitaki.govt.nz) did not show the council in a good light.
''We need to get the website looking right, make it functional,'' she said. Cr June Slee (70), who has been teaching online since 1994, urged the council to get with the times.
''We are really old-fashioned here - we have to get with it.''
Waitaki Mayor Gary Kircher welcomed the work to be done on the website, saying it had not functioned properly and ''this will make a major change towards that''.
He said the $1.2million budget initially proposed in the council's long-term plan, approved in June this year, had been pared back to $400,000
''to make sure there was a prioritisation''.
''There was a prioritisation and the focus was on what we needed rather than what we wanted,'' Mr Kircher said.
At its meeting on Wednesday, the council approved an information management programme that not only focused on website development, but also on back-scanning private property records, improving digital consent processes, and digitising cemetery information.
The council directed staff to ensure that information was available 24 hours a day, seven days a week; that both financial and non-financial matters could be dealt with; that there was a timely response to queries and transactions; and that online services were easy to use and reliable.
Council assets group manager Neil Jorgensen said the last update was done in-house. It had been done to update the site to reflect the council's re-branding, he said.
It had raised the expectation ongoing website development would occur. He said a generic website similar to those used by other councils - as had been previously discussed - was a ''likely outcome''.
The lone doubter at the October meeting was Cr Guy Percival, who questioned the council's ''expensive obsession'' with the website. He said his interaction with the council as a resident was limited to paying his rates and registering his dogs.
''It's not hard to pop in and do,'' Cr Percival said.
