Published on the 17/07/2013 | Written by Newsdesk

Kwinana Council, in Western Australia, first invested in Civica’s local government software in 2005, at the time running the application in house on its own infrastructure. In 2010 it signed a managed service contract which saw Civica run the system on its behalf. As of Monday next week Kwinana will be the second Australian council (following Esperance’s lead) to migrate to Civica’s cloud-based service which was unveiled in June.

According to Michael Preedy, managing director of local government solutions for Civica in Australia, of the 180 local councils currently using the company’s software, 30 have taken the managed service version of the software, with a further 30 having a managed service contract for back up purposes. However, he said that the company is now seeing a growing appetite for cloud computing among local government which, is challenged to find the staff needed to run increasingly comprehensive information systems.

“Local government has a sustainability issue. They are more than roads, rates and rubbish. They need more innovative ways to deliver services,” Preedy said, explaining that it increasingly needed to be provided on a 24×7 basis.

Preedy said that councils, particularly in rural and remote areas, found it hard to find and keep the technical skills necessary to run complex IT applications which made cloud an attractive alternative. He added that a cloud-based service supported councils’ mobility needs, allowing council workers to access the system from any device and wherever there was an internet connection.

Preedy said that all of Civica’s managed service customers would be transitioned to the cloud service which is being hosted out of an Equinix data centre. He denied that the cloud service was merely a cosmetic enhancement of the managed service offering, which had also been hosted by Equinix, saying that Civica had completely re-architected and refreshed the architecture.

As to the elasticity of the cloud Preedy said it could scale to “accommodate every council in Australia” and that while most councils still opted for a five year agreement, this was not compulsory.

Civica, a UK-based company which was bought by a Canadian pension fund for £390 million in May, has a staff of around 300 people in Australia, and revenues of A$130 million in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore across its health, local government, library and education groups. In the local government area Civica is also trying to build up a business process services division and so far has five councils on board.