Tauranga City Councillors have rejected an opportunity for free laptops and iPads, not because of costs, but because paper still works better.

At Thursday's Ten Year Plan meeting, councillors discussed a request to provide them with laptops or iPads so they can receive agendas electronically.

At a rough estimate, it costs ratepayers $31,350 each year to supply councillors with photocopied paper agendas and reports.

The report found there would be some savings if councillors went all digital.

iPads would cost $10,978 – but councillors will not be able to download large documents.

Laptops will costs $22,000.

The hidden cost is connectivity. Downloading large document files will depend on the availability and capacity of the individual data connection.

A council funded broadband subscription for councillors is estimated to cost more than $6700 per year.

Catherine Stewart says she's disappointed the subject was discussed in the council chamber, as there was an earlier informal discussion on the subject.

It was wasting time keeping 13 staff waiting for the next item on the agenda.

When she asked whose idea it was, Bill Grainger put his hand up, but Larry Baldock did the talking.

'I think we should be able to have the choice,” says Larry.

'Hopefully this can be worked out so that we can receive stuff. I travel a lot between council meetings, knowing I have to come back and pick up the courier pack, when all the time during the day I could be reading through agendas using electronic means.”

David Stewart agrees there are advantages, but only if all the councillors do it.

'It might be a bit early yet to be going this way, if it's less than everybody, we are wasting out time.”

Councillors and the public can currently open, read and download agendas and reports as they are posted on the Tauranga City Council website.

A secure logon for councillors to access confidential agendas could be arranged.

Councillor Rick Curach says he does everything online, but paper agendas work better.

'I bought an iPad about three months ago and I can't imagine using it at a meeting,” says Rick.

'With an agenda you can skim through the pages really fast, write a note. The pages have so many advantages.

'And I do everything online, but the practicality is, it doesn't work. It's different to reading an eBook.

'I'm not opposed to this I just don't think we are ready for it,” says Bill Faulkner.

'It would need to be fool proof before we went to it.”