This prestigious event was held Friday, 25th June 2004. Napier City Council entered their GIS/web-based property information portal into the "Excellence in the Use of IT for Customer Service" category.

The project was very much driven by Jackie Ockey (formerly the Planning IT Manager) and put together by Simon Nitz, their GIS specialist. While public web access to GIS systems is not altogether unusual, what makes this project stand out is the sheer breath of information made available and that the data is live.

Kaon Technologies provided the expertise to create a secure environment. NCS provided the web accessible data, not only from the NC core databases but any property related data held within the Council's Local Area Network.

We can all be very proud that Napier City Council was selected as a finalist for this award. The full list of finalists is:

• Livestock Improvement Corporation, Hamilton, for their electronic herd management solution
• Napier City Council for their GIS/web-based property information portal
• New Plymouth District Council for the Taranaki Information Network
• New Zealand Automobile Association for the Road Comms project

As it turns out, the AA was awarded the winner of this category and, in fact, they are also the winner of the "Excellence in the Use of IT for a Mobile Workforce" category with the same project.

Of course, it would have been wonderful had Napier City Council walked away with the trophy but one shouldn't forget that these finalists represent the very best in their field and the honour of being a finalist is great.

IDG decided late in the piece to add another category ? this being the best value for money (or as given: Bang for the Buck). Out of each category, of which there are 13, the best value project was selected and then out of these the top four were selected as finalists. I think we can take a bow for the fact that Napier City Council made it to the finalists of this category too. The winner of the category is a charitable organisation as is at least one other.

The Napier City Council Planning Department was presented with first place in the prestigious Information Technology Innovation Awards at the 25th National Association of Local Government Information Managers Conference held in Taupo.

Napier City's entry in the awards was an Information Portal that provides the public with information via the Internet and includes a raft of location information for visitors, property data, census statistics, civil defence locations as well as general maps and will replace the current online system.

Features of international interest including Art Deco and NZ Heritage Trust buildings are included but the aspect that distinguished Napier's entry from others was the property information section. When a user connects to the site they are accessing information straight from Council's databases. The information is live and real-time and is the same data that Council staff use on a daily basis when processing applications for consents.

This system provides the public with information on individual properties going back to 1992 and includes information such as building consents, resource consents, licences, pools, listed hazards, utility information, contours, aerial photography, topographical maps, rating values, refuse collection days and the District Plan.

Napier's entry is the vision of IT Manager Jackie Ockey and was developed by GIS Administrator Simon Nitz. Locally owned and operated Napier Computer Systems, suppliers of Local Government software to Napier City, assisted with the complex integration issues which give the system its award winning functionality and the system is hosted by Auckland ISP and Security specialists Kaon Technologies Ltd.

Napier's entry was the best of 13 entries from 11 Local Authority organisations and prevailed over Wellington City and New Plymouth District Council for first place.

When asked about the cost of the system Ockey replied that much of the work was done in-house and had been built on the foundation of earlier developments so the actual cost was low (approx $2,000) compared with other entries costing over $100,000. The team philosophy is to build systems that evolve over time in order to maximise Council's return on investment and minimise both risk and unnecessary expense.