Bass Coast has shown that through collaboration of effort it has addressed a problem common to councils. Whilst determining the project scope also evaluating what processes and standards to review and adopt Paul Lennox – Bass Coast Shire GIS & Data Systems administrator said “ we needed to identify. what was the fundamental characteristics of the data that we want to collect to be used as a foundation for our project” The D-Spec standard specification provided us with the structure that we required for the collection of our drainage asset data. Our decision to work with the A-SPEC Consortium was driven by its open data schema in that it does not specify any one software to use but focused on the right data to enable strong asset management” he went on to say.
George Havakis, who coordinates the A-SPEC Consortium, said that Bass Coast Shire and Paul Lennox have been strong supporters of the program and they are now reaping the rewards.
“The adoption of A-SPEC standards has significantly reduced both the time taken and the costs involved for Bass Coast and has enabled them to manage local community assets more efficiently,” he added.
“That results in better and faster services for ratepayers.”
The national A-SPEC standard is not a propriety software program. It simply sets an agreed national standard framework determined by technical working groups in each State to provide asset information in a GIS ready format which councils can use with whatever computer software programs they prefer. This flexibility also enables the industry supplying the asset data to incorporate into their current practices.
Havakis urged other local government authorities to adopt a similar “smart follower” approach that Bass Coast has. Read More
