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Introduction to Dashboards in Municipalities

22 November 2023
Introduction to Dashboards in Municipalities

An at-a-glance, visual representation of the way things are – our human brains are wired to respond to quick and easily understood visual inputs. The word “dashboards” has various associations and maybe most foremost among these in most people’s minds, we associate dashboards with vehicles. It is not surprising that the automotive industry was the 1st to cotton onto the usefulness of making good decisions based on a fleeting glimpse towards an appropriate readout on a dashboard.

Therefore we asked the logical question: “Why change something so obvious fit-for-purpose?” Is the municipal space not wrought with heavy loads of useful data, yearning for the appropriate at-glance dashboard? Novus3 has therefore immersed ourselves in using our deep knowledge of useful financial and decision-making data to carefully craft the most appropriate “at-a-glance” dashboards. Our clients are under increasing pressure from all quarters to make good decisions without the benefit of having loads of time to do so.

We have packed this value in our standalone application called CP³ Analytics. The positive feedback that we have received from our users includes that this solution excels at conveying the right information at the right level to the right people.

Key Benefits of CP³ Analytics in a Municipality:

🧐 Gain Insights: Near real-time, actionable insights into the performance of local municipalities, enabling timeous and better decision-making and problem-solving.

📈 Visualise Data: Easy-to-understand, re-imagined data presentation, enabling the quick identification of trends, patterns, and/or anomalies.

📌 Monitor Progress: Track progress towards goals and KPIs and easily identify areas and thresholds that require improvement or attention.

🤝 Improved Collaboration: Selective sharing with relevant stakeholders, including municipal officials, department heads, councillors and/or rate-payers, to facilitate and enhance collaboration and transparency.

📣 Enhanced Accountability: Monitor municipal performance and improve transparency towards stakeholders, including rate-payers and other oversight bodies where deemed necessary.

⚙️ Streamline Operations: A comprehensive overview of KPIs; dashboards can help municipalities identify areas where processes and resources can be streamlined and optimised.

⏱️ Save Time and Resources: Dashboards wrap the process of data collection, analysis and reporting, saving municipalities the time and resources that can be redirected towards other priority areas.

Embrace the future of local governance with dashboards through CP³ Analytics! 🚀

#CP3 #LocalGovernance #Innovation #Development #Collaboration #Transparency #DataDriven #SustainableDevelopment #Dashboards #Accountability #Empowerment #Efficiency #LocalVoice #ProgressMonitoring #Budgeting #SystemSupport #CapacityBuilding #SmartCities #LocalGovernment #BigData

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Capital investment prioritisation

Novus3’s innovative and celebrated approach to prioritsation, stems from significant multi-disciplinary experience that was gained in-situ at local government level, firmly rooted in an understanding of the built environment. Through the use of the CP3 system, our clients have the ability to appraise large and complex capital demand requirements within minutes, resulting in defendable, evidence based budgets. The results are often challenged and stress tested by politicians during political debates – the process therefore repeatedly have been proven to be beyond reproach and consistently reliable.

IDP Process Plan and change management

Novus3 provides advisory services to our clients, supporting them in setting up the correct structures and mechanisms internally which becomes the basis for sustainable and collaborative planning and implementation. The IDP process plan has a number of inter-related complexities that plays out on a cyclic basis year-on-year. Pre-empting and reacting to upcoming requirements in the IDP process pro-actively, renders the process into a constructive and demonstratable outcomes-based process.

Public sector budget and fiscal impact simulation

The financial management of public sector funding at local government level, even on a small scale, often rivals the complexity encountered at huge, listed, multi-national companies in the private sector.. Local governments have to operate and make smart financial decisions within a complex and exceedingly stressful environment. Compliance with legislation, policy frameworks and accepted accounting practices have to be maintained. Simulating these complexities allows our financial executives to ask “What if?” questions and reliably peer into the future with a long-term understanding of the implications of decisions that are taken in the present.

Spatial Development Frameworks

Novus3’s specialised knowledge and access to bespoke and purpose-made spatial and other analytic tools, provided the company with the opportunity to develop unparalleled experience in the development of Capital Expenditure Frameworks (CEFs) by bringing a practical angle to the formulation of implementation plans. A realistic roadmap is provided on how to realise the objectives developed in the Spatial Development Frameworks of the municipalities where we were involved. In return for the development and submission of these CEFs, these municipalities were awarded with significant additional funding from central government.

Built Environment Performance Plans

As part of the National Treasury City Support Program, Novus3 was regarded as specialist advisors on the built environment value chain – a process embedded in Built Environment Performance Plans (BEPPs). BEPPs were intended to form the bedrock of municipal capital planning and management for larger cities (metros). Novus3’s specialist knowledge played a big role from an advisory and capacity building perspective during the development of a number of BEPPs that were developed for a number of metros.

Infrastructure Capital Investment Plans

Infrastructure investment has to find a balance between addressing historical backlogs and inequalities, maintaining satisfactory prevailing functionality and level of service and strategically investing in unlocking future opportunities and growth whilst acknowledging a plethora regulatory constraints, policies and rules. In the process, certain strategic outcomes are sought which may manifest spatially strategically or environmentally. Our infrastructure capital investment plans provide the strategic guideline and provide the recommendations to find this balance.

Capital Expenditure Frameworks

Novus3 has developed multiple capital expenditure frameworks (CEFs) for multiple municipal clients and are regarded as the sector leaders in this area. These CEFs are financial roadmaps providing clear direction on financial constraints, the most important capital and investment priorities, an understanding of the unique local fundamentals and a sustainable response to these multiplicity of challenges.

Project preparation processes

The efficient planning and execution of projects from the moment of idea conception until the last brick has been laid has been the subject of study from as early as the reign of the Roman Empire. The governance process within the public sector has to play an important role in the journey of project preparation. The under-expenditure of allocated funding regrettably is often the only element in the built-environment that consistently re-occurs. All too often, funding is allocated to projects that simply are not ready to proceed to the next step. Novus3’s CP3 system is used to aid clients in the progressive steps involved in the project preparation journey.