The Capability Gap Facing Regional Councils

Hello, and welcome to Infrastructure Matters, the podcast dedicated to exploring the dynamic world of infrastructure, asset management, and public works. I'm your host, David Jenkins, CEO of IPWA. In today's episode, we're joined by Blake Gordon, general manager of APAC for Brightly, and Tamara Allen Canney, founder and principal consultant at WorkTel Red and also part of our team here at IPWA. Together, we discuss how technology leadership and collaboration are transforming the way regional councils manage their infrastructure. We'll unpack the challenges faced by smaller councils from limited funding and workforce capacity to the opportunities that digital innovation and cross sector learning present. So sit back and enjoy an insightful conversation about building capability, driving efficiency, and empowering our regional community. So welcome to Infrastructure Matters podcast. Now, for those of you listening, we can't see you, but I actually just wanna say a big thank you to all the listeners that have been supporting us. The, listenership certainly keeps on growing, and I can't see you, but I really, really do appreciate that you tuning in. And I'm very excited to have Blake Gordon and Tamara Allen Canney with us today. Blake Gordon's the GM of APAC for Brightly, and just I just wanna acknowledge really just the support that Brightly's provided IPWA and the membership, over the last four, five years. They really have supported us in terms of the events and what we've, what we've put on, the major conferences that we do, but not just with us, but also our divisions throughout Australia and New Zealand. And they really have supported some. I'm hugely thankful for that, Blake. Of course, David. Yeah. Proud too. Tomorrow, our very own tomorrow Tamara Allen Canney. So part of our team as well, but she runs her own consultancy firm, and I very much enjoy Tamar's company. We had we had breakfast this morning, and I know that she's very much looking forward to this podcast today. So Great to be here, David. Good stuff. Alright. We're gonna get straight into it. So, Tamara, can you paint us a picture of what it's really like managing infrastructure in regional and rural councils? Yeah. Sure. Look, it's I've spent all of my career working in rural and regional councils. Some of those larger regionals were smaller and transitioned to more areas of urban infrastructure development over time. But it's different than So, it's more personal, it's more connected. My experience has been that the community is much more interested in cancel service delivery, how cancel operates, in relation to their service delivery, but also how they respond to the community's needs. A lot of our staff would live and work in the council as well, so quite personal. Managing infrastructure and infrastructure services has its own challenges as well. So I mean, we have a tendency, don't we, to sort of say, oh, local government. Right? Local government, you've got big metropolitan councils. You've got remote regional councils. It is very different. You just highlighted some of those differences. But, you know, if we if we delve into a bit deeper around people side of things in terms of, the capacity, the capability, funding, I mean, the reality is, and you correct me if I'm wrong, you know, you have people sometimes managing infrastructure, you know, a point six. Yeah. So can you can you sort of paint that picture a little bit more? What are the actual realities on the ground when it comes to to to the teams there? I I worked in a the smallest role I worked in, was a director of infrastructure there, And I also oversaw, the end of a rebuilding programme after a fairly significant natural disaster. And there was just no capacity in the organisation to respond to that. So, we have to our own capacity. And then when you think you've got it right, when you've got the right resources, you get the turnover, you know, and you lose the expertise. And so, even as a CEO or a director or any level, you've got to fill the gaps however you can to keep the services running or to respond to council or community. So Yep. So, Blake, why I mean, you've got a a viewpoint. You deal with big metropolitan councils. You deal with rural regional councils. You have a well, your role's APAC. And so you you see it all. So why should we care about all this? Look. Why should we care? I think, you know, one quarter of Australians live in remote and rural communities. They are literally the backbone of our economy. You know, if you think about where the, you know, the food we eat in the cities, where that comes from, if you think about the resources that we use to build the cities, the the the steel, the concrete, I mean, all those resources are are typically coming from remote areas. And so that infrastructure in those remote areas is is, you know, vastly important to to getting those goods to where they need to go in in international trade. So, you know, the it it you know, those rural commune communities are are really the backbone of our nation and economy. And at Brightly, we you know, as you said, we have exposure to all types. So we have around, in Australia, fifty small councils. Yep. And, certainly, you know, the challenges that we see that those councils face versus our other councils, you know, it's just the perfect storm, really. You know, vastly different situations that they're dealing with, and certainly how we work with them is is very different. Yeah. Okay. I mean, in terms of support wise, you know, how do you look to support them? I think we we will go into a little bit more around the solution. We certainly will. But how do you look to support rural remote rural regional councils more so than you do the metropolitan councils? It's it's it's typically higher touch. Yeah. So more service led. Yeah. So, obviously, we're a company that have both software and services offerings. Yeah. And and we find that the smaller councils, you know, they need simpler solutions, and they need more human based solutions. And that's where our, you know, services team professional services team come into play. The the great thing is that many of them either grew up in or still live in remote regional council areas, so they are certainly very passionate as well about helping those clients. This isn't new in terms of infrastructure asset management. But at the conference over the last couple of days, we continually talk about the importance of maintenance and renewal of assets. It's not just about building new. It's not a new thing. But what is the current state of play from your experience around the state of infrastructure asset management at a regional level? From my experience, the current state of play is that the maturity and capability is pretty low. There's work to be done. And work has been needed to be done for a very long time. It's been great to see at this conference that there is more recognition from councils demonstrating where they're at and making plans and where they need to go to build their capability. But when you talk about capability, where is the issuing capability? Are we talking about the elected member level, management? Councils and small regionals, it's at every level. If I look at my home state in Queensland, the Queensland Audit Office undertook a report in twenty twenty three, And, you know, the numbers were really telling. Councils were required to self assess their maturity, which, yeah, I think there was about seventy percent participation or just under that. And those councils' self assessment, they're at either between basic and core, so quite low, and I thought that was just pretty telling in the sense of councils are acknowledging they've got work to do. And is that at the management level? That's across all of the organisation. So, I think from my experience, you have your asset managers who really know the assets well, they know the service delivery. And unless you've got a good leader tuned in to what needs to happen and a good counsel asking the right questions, or even asking curious questions, you may not get the traction, and that's what I've seen in the past. I've worked in a council, that was my first real asset transformation experience. And again, it was after a major disaster where we had a whole heap of assets lost and rebuilt and gifted back to council at the same time. Basically, we couldn't sustain them in the long term. So, we needed to go back and unpack all of our asset management and understand what our liabilities were. And that was a really great I was a director, so I guess I had some, you know, I I had already bought in and I was leading the team, but the CEO and the councillors really engaged in the conversation. You know, they had to, but they also owned it, and then we were able to talk to the community and educate the community, hear back from the community around why we couldn't fund new infrastructure, because we had liabilities. So is the real problem then leadership? Because it's not a shortage, we haven't got a shortage of frameworks, systems, policies, educational material, we've got lots of that stuff, right? So is the real problem leadership? Look, I think absolutely. I'd see it more as an opportunity. I guess I'd like to reframe that I'd to that's a better way to frame it, so thank you for doing that, yes. Because I think that senior leaders and being a director previously, it's a really busy job, and as CEO, a really busy job, lots of things to do. But being able to engage as senior executive and our elected members it's really critical to get any leverage and to get any change happening, because I've seen teams really do some great work, but unless it's embedded in the organisation and owned by the leadership. Yep, Perfect. And I wanna and that's what I wanna ask you, Blake, because, you know, you you know, you provide technology solutions, which are fine. But in in terms of embedding culture across an organization around asset management, You can have the best whiz bang technology in the world. So how do you approach how do you and your teams approach that to really help drive, you know, that sort of leadership and and understanding of of asset management across an organization? Yeah. I mean, when you're absolutely right. You know, when we look at implementations of our own products, and we think they're pretty whiz bang, as you say. Yep. But we have implementations that go wrong, and, you know, invariably, that can be for any number of reasons. But very typically, you have those key elements missing around leadership, change management, a clear plan. And so what do Brightly do about it? I mean, we are you know, we obviously look at those projects that don't go so well, and and, know, we do our root cause analysis and everything. And when we see these trends, we we actually start to work on it. So, you know, across all those elements, we see that, you know, there's something we have to bring to the table in terms of our implementation and professional services team. So, you know, we're building those capabilities and the focus on those elements in into our delivery process. But also for us, probably probably more clearly, it's it's an opportunity that we see to partner with the right sort of people on projects so that you bring the human side and the technology side together for successful organizational change. So how do you foster collaboration across? So if we if we're trying to you know, this and and and this problem isn't around a leadership. It's not just limited to remote or regional councils. Right? It's across the board, and it's not even just a national problem. It's an international problem. But how do you and from your different lenses and experiences, how do you get cross collaboration? Because if we're talking about, you know, asset management across local government, it's not just the asset management team. Alright? It's the pub it's the public parks and open spaces people. They're managing assets. Alright? It's the arborists. They're managing natural assets. It's the finance people, so they actually understand understand, you know, long term financial planning linking it into an asset management plan. This isn't news this isn't new news to you both. But how do you how do you start to build that cross collaboration? What does that look like? I mean, I think, you know, we we've spoken we've touched on a few of the disadvantages that small councils have already, but I think one area where they're uniquely positioned and they have a massive advantage is they are smaller, and that often means more simple organizations where people know each other. And, you know, clearly, that's that's the sort of environment where collaboration can really flourish. So, you know, I certainly believe that the small councils have an advantage with collaboration. How do you foster it? I think, you know, you need joint goals. I think that's really the basis of of collaboration is is both being, you know, united in in where you're headed together. Common language is is super important. And so, you know, you referenced the the no shortage of of frameworks and tools and things out there. I think, you know, when when you embed those sort of things into an organization, you train people on them, you build that common language and common understanding, common goals, and, you know, that's when collaboration takes off. How does technology broadly and it's not just in terms of the asset management process, but how can technology drive efficiency so that if you don't have the numbers of people that you might have somewhere else, you can actually drive efficiency throughout the whole asset management process? A hundred percent. I mean, this is where we see the real impact being felt for small councils with technology. You've got less people, so you have to make every single person that much more productive. Yeah. And so how do you do that? I mean, you make sure that they you know, when they go to a a job that they have to do, it's a job that does need to be done in the first place. It's approved to be done. They have everything they need to fulfill that job first time. You know, often they're dealing with vast distances. So, you know, you don't wanna be it's very wasteful, obviously, to drive out, see what you need to do, drive back, get the materials, you know, grab your buddy who has the right skills to do the job and and go back again. So, yeah, having everything in place, all the documentation you need, all the approvals you need, all the materials, the skill sets, everything before you do the job, I mean, that just makes people so much more efficient. And then having, you know, mobile devices so people can, you know, take photos, you know, get work instructions remotely, That's what, you know, technology really brings to bear to make every employee more efficient. Do you see it done better in the private system? So, I mean, you know, I'm not an expert, but the, you know, the big mining corporations have tracking technologies built into their assets, feedback information data. You necessarily, you don't have to have twenty people go out and check the condition of the asset, etcetera. Is there is there examples there that that you've seen that potentially local government can learn from? Absolutely. I mean, you know, having having come from Siemens and seen, you know, how many industries in Australia operate, you know, I'm I I admire very much our resources industry. You know, we're a global powerhouse in in mining and and LNG. And, certainly, if you look at some of the technologies and things that the the companies, the big companies do in that space, BHP, Rio Tinto, etcetera, you know, the global names that we have on our doorstep, they are embracing technology really fast. You know, they're extracting every minute amount of productivity that they can out of every employee in every mine site. So, yeah, absolutely, there's there's things that we need to be learning across industries. But that involves money. And so, typically, local government is you know, the we need more money. Does it all come down to financial resource? I don't think so. I mean, yeah, yeah, clearly, you need money, but but every investment has its merits, and you need to weigh those up based on, you know, a return on investment. So, you know, clearly and and the big companies with lots of money, they also wouldn't make investments that don't yield results. So, you know, clearly, it's about understanding what other people are doing and applying best practices where there is an ROI for your organization. And and I guess being part of the Siemens Group, you know, gives you a real understanding not just of local government, state government, but the breadth of industry because you are dealing with big, big commercial corporate industries. It's that breadth that that can give you can give others you can sort of pass on some of that experience and knowledge. Right? Correct? Absolutely. I mean, that's what we see as, you know, brightly working in the local government space in Australia. That's really an advantage that we can bring to our clients being part of Siemens. You know, firstly, there is that domain expertise across so many different industries, and we can gain best practices from other industries. But, obviously, there's, you know, the economies of scale and all the investment that Siemens are making into core technologies like AI, etcetera, that, you know, we will benefit from in the years to come and be able to pass on those benefits to our clients. Yeah. So tomorrow, just bringing it back to the sort of actual context a little bit. I mean, have you seen where business cases have been put forward around, you know, this all makes sense. Right? So if we can drive efficiency through technology, there's there's that's a robust business case. If you're looking to, you know, improve your asset management part, you don't have the human capital necessarily. So what's stopping local government from from doing that? I think I've seen where local government has put the time and energy and effort into getting ready for technology as part of their broader asset management framework, and it works. And not without some of those implementation stumbles and things like that. And then I've seen where organisations come from the other side, where maybe they're not quite ready, they haven't quite thought about what their process is, how they need to change or adapt to get the best out of the technology they're buying. And I think they then run into problems with their implementation that's probably not fair to them as an organisation or necessarily the vendor. So I guess what's best practise for local government, and no matter how big or small you are, is to just make sure that pre work is done. Be ready for it. Know what it is that you want to actually achieve with your technology. And you don't have to do it all at once. It can be scaled as well. And I think that the change management is often a piece that's missed because it's not in the budget. Or it's like, well, we can just take that out and we'll just do a bit of training. But we're changing behaviours, we're changing the way that people work, especially some of our operational workforces that may have tradition, in our smaller councils, that may have been paper based or even spreadsheet based, but have just done their work for such a long time to then shift to new technology. I think they'll embrace it with the right kind of process in bringing them along. And this nicely leads me on to this next question. What does the future asset manager look like then? So if we were to sit down in ten years' time, and I want you both to answer this question, and you might have the same or different answers, but what does the future asset manager look like? So, I guess the vision I have for asset management in local government is, especially for rural and small councils or those councils that are even growing, is that they start with the end in mind, that they set themselves up for success because the rework We don't want to be having the same conversations in ten years or fifteen years where we're still making the same systems or the same mistakes. We're actually learning, taking all those things that we know now, but getting that leadership buy in, we're aligning our plans. And look, it's not a sexy vision that I have for local government, it's really pragmatic. I'd love to see rural councils get from basic to core, some good systems supporting them and that can be maintained like they would maintain any other service or asset. That for me is, I guess, my vision. And further to that, that can be scaled Yeah. Wherever that council wishes to go. Okay. Now before you answer the question, Blake, so you're all about driving efficiency in the process. Right? So and, you know, there's this whole fear around, you know, professions are changing technology. Our jobs are redundant. I would argue that the the future asset management asset manager, you still need the critical thinking, need the analysis. You can have all this technology in the world. Right? Yep. But would you agree with that, or do you see it slightly differently? How do you see it? How do you see the directive infrastructure asset? It doesn't actually matter with the metropolitan region in the next ten, twenty years who's using a technology the way it should be, is driving efficiency, but what are the skills that they still need? I mean, before we come to that Yeah. I don't think people need to be scared because ninety percent of councils are struggling to fill roles. Yeah. You know? So we have a massive skill shortage, so we shouldn't be fearful of technology that's going to take jobs because there's there's too many jobs. You know, what does that asset manager look like? I think as you referred to before, David, it's it's a truly cross functional profession. You know, hopefully, in the future, we get more recognition of that profession and and and more sort of training and and things in under undergraduate studies, etcetera. But that means the person needs to be a generalist. Yep. They need to have an understanding of all the different functions across the organization and how they all need to play together to to get the most out of their assets. So, yeah, some of those core skills, I think they need to be a collaborator. Good generalist knowledge, business knowledge, and engineering knowledge. And as you referred to, they they have to know how to embrace technology because that is gonna be the difference between how we do things today and and how we do things in ten years' time because we have to be a hundred times better in ten years' time from now. Let's talk about attracting people into the profession and and more broadly into local government. So and I know that you've done some work, with universities, allow access to technology. What more needs to be done? And you can and you can put some of the questions to me in terms of professional bodies, but what more needs to be done do you think to encourage people into, and I call it a profession, the asset management profession, and into local government? I mean, I I I think to make it an attractive profession, there's obviously a few reasons why people get jobs. Right? There's some hygiene issues around remuneration and things like that, so we need to be market competitive. But but, ultimately, people go into a job because they're passionate about it. Well, certainly, those that succeed in their career go into jobs they're passionate about. So I think we need to celebrate, you know, the great stuff that asset managers do every day for for business, for society, for all our communities. I think it's those stories that will really attract people who are purpose driven into the profession. And and I I don't think anyone would disagree. What why are you so passionate about what technology can do and getting into the technology side of things with asset management? Because we are literally faced with this convergence of problems, you know, the the skill shortages, the financial shortages, climate change, you know, which is really an existential threat to to us and our communities. The the only way we can tackle those problems is is with technology. As I said, we we need to accelerate how fast we're building capability to deal with those problems. And and, you know, we at Siemens I mean, of course, we're a technology company, but we see technology as the only answer in how we can accelerate. In an on an APAC or even an international, have you seen have you can you mark or point to I mean, we've talked about, you know, mining companies, whatever. But if can you point to anywhere or any organizational type of organization where you're saying they're really ahead of the curve with this stuff? They're really pushing hard. I mean, diff yeah. Difficult one. Like I say, I mean, I spent I spent a bit of time in the oil and gas industry, and, you know, I was always, you know, very envious around the the oil majors. Like, I I think they they had their stuff together in terms of how they ran their business. You know, their their safety performance was excellent. Their quality performance was excellent. Their productivity was excellent. And and, you know, again, I think they're the sort of industries that we need to be looking at as infrastructure managers to see what they're doing so well and apply it. But as you know, you know, the drivers are different. So your big corporate commercials, shareholder value, money, revenue, bottom line, profit, local government, community outcomes. So we got very different drivers, but that's not to say we still can't. You gotta you gotta optimize on what your drivers are. Absolutely. Yeah. Great. Now, Tamara, I'm sure you'll have a view on this. In terms of getting people into local government, you know, promoting the, you know, the value of working in local government on what you do, what is it, or what do you think needs to be done? And I don't want to lead the question here, but there's an educational element, there's a professional body element, there's actually, I think, a storytelling element, but maybe let me let you answer that question. I think there's two elements to that. I think that having spent twenty five years in local government, I think it's one of the best sectors to work in. You get so much opportunity to do a whole range of different things as a young person, get great pathways into management and also diversification. But also, if you're working in local government or you find yourself working there, and where there's some opportunities to, and even as leaders, to identify people in your teams where they can add further value than what they do, especially in the asset management space. What I've done in the past is identify those really great people with skills that are being underutilised. Leverage things like professional bodies, their training pathways, and I don't recreate the wheel, don't try and train people yourselves necessarily, but start putting people through professional development, grow your own resourcing, especially in the smaller councils where it's really hard to get people and keep people. And keep people. I also would encourage engineers to get experience in areas like maintenance and things like that, where traditionally, as I was coming through, so I'm not an engineer, I'm a scientist, but I took on roles where there was leadership opportunities and encouraged engineers to come into some of those more operational roles and lead those teams to get just to really balance out that skill and experience. And the same in into asset management as well. K. Perfect. Now I'm gonna give you final words each. Is there anything that I've missed that you you think you think you'd like to say just to round off our conversation? I think you could ask us why we're here together today. Why are you here today together? Well, you know, you asked me about Yep. Where technology can fail earlier, David, and and, you know, I spoke about all those things, you know, leadership, governance, change management, good project management, and how the fact that we as an organization saw an opportunity to partner with people that did that really well. You know, it was actually Tamara that came to us. I mean, she was probably trying to solve the same problem from the other side of the fence. So after leaving local government and establishing my consultancy, I took all of those problems I wanted to solve and what I would have needed in local government and sort of thought, well, this would be an approach. Then Blake and I had been having some conversations, and so, we had some further conversation around what our vision could be for supporting rural councils, especially in the technology space. I had some pretty clear views on what councils need that are effective and simple, and Blake certainly has put some really great thinking around Is this a true partnership? Yes, that's what we're building on. So, yeah, looking forward to what that can provide for for the sector. Can I can I ask when you gave that feedback to Blake? How quickly did he turn it around? She did say yesterday, we've been talking for a year, David. So That's right. So, yeah, you know, what initially started is, you know, conversation over cover. Look, this is what I'm thinking, and Blake was, you know, quite receptive to that, and we'd we'd had a different sort of working relationship, you know, in the past, and when I came out on my own, was, okay, this is what I wanted to achieve in the sense of uplifting asset management in local government. This was sort of like my give back bit, but I need that supported by some technology that's effective and simple for organisations to implement, this is my ideas around how that could work, and so I think you were pretty receptive to Yeah, absolutely. When you made those changes, Blake, I just want to keep going with this because this interesting. So when you made those changes, you got the feedback. It's a big organisation you're dealing with, right? So was it do you have direct line into product development team? Or because you said, you know, one of the solutions was, well, we just need to be more human centered, and we need to respond. So how much of it was changing some of the back end versus let's just to change our approach? It it was a bit of both to your point. I mean, largely, we looked at our product offering in the software and what we could do to to simplify and scale it to the needs of of smaller councils. So that was the main bit. But, certainly, to your point, we we also looked at how we did things. You know? How do we service clients? How do we train them? Can we do it more efficiently and more effectively for smaller councils to make this, know, a truly fit for purpose offering. And then, you know, we were super excited by, you know, the prospect of being able to partner with someone like Tamara with, you know, decades of experience providing that lead ship in government governance and and organizational change management. We just see it as, you know, the best of both worlds being brought to bear for smaller councils. Yeah. It's a good news story. Thank you ever so much to both of you. I really enjoyed the conversation. I hope you have too. Likewise. And I look forward to releasing this when I think we'll get we'll get some great listenership. So thank you ever so much. Really, really appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks, David. Thanks, David. That wraps up another episode of Infrastructure Matters. A big thank you to our guests, Blake Gordon and Tamara Allen Canney, for sharing their perspectives on how leadership, technology, and strong partnerships can help regional councils thrive. If you enjoyed today's discussion, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review infrastructure matters on your favorite platform. Follow IPW and LinkedIn for more updates and exclusive content. Before you go, we'd love to hear your thoughts on this week's topic. What do you think is the biggest challenge facing regional councils today? Vote now in our Spotify poll, or if you're watching on YouTube, share your thoughts in the comments below. Love to hear from you. I'm David Jenkins signing off reminding you that in the realm of infrastructure, every detail matter.