Council invites Townsville to have their say on new online platform
Date published: 25 September 2019
Townsville City Council is launching a new community consultation platform called Have Your Say Townsville as it continues to improve transparency.
Have Your Say Townsville will allow residents to provide feedback and participate in a range of Council projects.
Acting Mayor Les Walker said Have Your Say Townsville is another step Council is taking to improve engagement across the city.
“With the launch of our Have Your Say Townsville platform, Council will have all our community consultation in one space and give residents plenty of options for recording feedback.
“This platform will streamline access to information on any engagement for Council projects and make it easier to find what residents are looking for.
“Have Your Say Townsville will be our one stop for all community consultation and the information will be shared with Townsville Dashboards.”
Townsville Dashboards launched in February and since then has had over 70,000 page-views and over 3,500 downloads of data sets or available resources.
Governance and Finance Committee Chair Cr Verena Coombe said the dashboards will continue to grow over the next 12 months.
“The launch of Townsville Dashboards was very successful, and Council is now looking at what we can do to continue improving the service,” Cr Coombe said.
“This includes the addition of new information from our liveability and inclusivity studies, community safety data and a parks and open spaces explorer.
“All of this is part of our journey to become a Smart City and streamline how Council shares information with the community.”
Cr Coombe said the launch of Townsville Dashboards was one action taken to address recommendations made by the Office of the Information Commissioner (OIC) last year.
“Council has actioned all 24 of the recommendations made by the OIC and we welcome any further suggestions they may have,” Cr Coombe said.
“Have Your Say Townsville demonstrates Council’s commitment to continue to improve on how we engage and share information with residents.”
Have Your Say will launch officially on Thursday this week.
Other actions taken to meet the recommendations by the OIC include:
- Easier access to Council’s RTI information on the website
- Livestreaming of Full Council meetings
- Community Council meetings
- Re-established an Information Governance Steering Committee
- New MOU with QPS committing to community safety and access to CCTV footage
- Adopted a new Information Privacy Policy
To view the Townsville Dashboards, visit: https://dashboards.townsville.qld.gov.au
