Brightly On Tour – Moorabool Shire Council

Probably the main challenge is data. It's surprising to say, but some councils don't even know what assets they've got, and and we were the same when I started the journey. So it was, you know, you had we had numerous spreadsheets, different asset categories. So it's really about bringing all that data together, making sure the data's accurate and probably buying from the top. You know, I've been, you know, involved a lot of times in asset management and if you don't have that commitment from the top, it's very hard to make that change. So now we've got the one source of truth. We've got that linked to GIS. So Ascetic Brightly holds all the data and then our GIS just reads off it and likewise our maintenance system. And I think it's just, you know, continuing to improve that data, making sure that we've got proper documentation in place around when we do our condition assessments, making sure that they're followed up, and then just reiterating, you know, that good data to reflect our plans and, you know, how we're telling council the money we need for future. I think there's probably a couple of things, but the main one is data. So you've got to know what you've got and what condition it's in, having that single source of truth, making sure you've got a very good relationship between finance and the accountants. And the other thing is keep it simple. You know, I've seen so many councils try to build so much complexity into their data and then you've got to realize every time then you go out for an audit, you've got to then get all this data in, try to work out how you're going to lose it, so keep it simple. You can't make asset management happen overnight. I've always found it's probably a a few years at least of a journey to get that, you know, data and it depends on funding as well.