We're the Codefather team from Terem Technologies. With CouncilPlus we want solve the problem of open source data access regarding the correlation between funding, services and societal outcomes across local governments.
Currently, information about government spending by council is fragmented. Each council must submit annual reports which outline their revenue, expenditure and funding. But these reports do not demonstrate how this funding is translated into specific initiatives. Moreover, each state has their own standards of data sharing and comparisons of services across local councils.
CouncilPlus: an open-source, aggregated, free dataset which is a consistent means of offering instantaneous access to relevant statistics for local government areas. Using our simple framework, councils all over Australia can use the data to collaborate with each other, share best practice and identify gaps to more effectively lobby for more funding and services. Additionally, we have created a channel for councils to interact directly with the federal government to raise awareness about issues being facing by their communities. We have used 10 data sets across crime, education and health, and our solution is built in React and Node.js, hosted on Heroku. Our tool, CouncilPlus, is a data visualisation framework that allows for council data comparisons with a click of a button. Where councils are able to identify gaps, plan their funding applications, and petition the government, in the spirit of open-source, so can local residents. This system can further assist councils to recognise areas of concern or interest in their communities. You can also see what petitions have been started in your area and join your neighbours in showing your support.
We have started with the datasets for the seven local government areas of greater Sydney, but we plan to expand this to all 537 councils across Australia.
Future milestones include building an API to connect our petition-building capability directly to the government’s current system, E-Petition, to work with subject matter experts to improve the awareness indicators and identify trends, and to move away from the historical data collection model to real time.
🖖 We’re the Codefather, and we’re hoping in the most positive way, that we are making councils "an offer they can’t refuse".