While politicians talk about local government amalgamation, the real thing has been quietly going on behind the scenes since 2008.

Bay of Plenty Local Authority Shared Services Ltd is a council controlled organsiation with directors from all the Bay of Plenty territorial local authorities and Gisborne, which has been changing the way councils operate.

The BOPLASS region. Image: www.boplass.co.nz

Starting with collaboration on bulk buying of goods and services for the councils, the successful operation is moving towards looking at shared rates collection, joint software support and ultrafast broadband connections, according to the CCO's six monthly report presented to the council projects and monitoring committee on Monday.

Since BOPLASS' inception it has saved the city's ratepayers hundreds of thousands of dollars each year, says the council group manger business services, Dean Riley.

BOPLASS Ltd is governed by a board that includes the CEO's of the member councils.

It buys services in its own right and on-sells them to member councils.

'BOPLASS has been very successful in what it does, and it's getting nationwide recognition in how it operates,” says Dean.

The three year telecommunications contract recently acquired by BOPLASS will alone save Tauranga city ratepayers about $200,000 says Dean.

BOPLASS early successes in joint procurement are regarded as the ‘low hanging fruit'.

The CCO is now working on shared services and the more challenging issues of shared services and amalgamating contracts.

'Rates, finance, human resources; as you climb up that tree it gets more and more difficult to attain because the investment up front gets bigger and bigger,” says Tauranga CEO Ken Paterson.

'When integrating services, commonising processes, every single council has same outcomes but all have a different process which they own.”

Two projects BOPLASS has on the go at the moment are contracts and how the nine member councils gather their rates.

'With potential local government reform this could be laying out the path to prevent a whole lot of work being done in a short space of time,” says committee chairman Bill Faulkner.

Current BOPLASS initiatives include the regional network platform an initiative to provide 1gbps fibre and or microwave connection to all councils in the network.

Final connections between Gisborne and Kawerau should be made this year.

The connectivity is allied with the information services strategic plan, which is a policy for collaborating and providing IT services including a common security and access policy, technology policy project management process and other essentials in a combined approach to information technology.

The councils already share geographic information and have common geographic information software and are developing a web interface for intranet and internet.