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Local technology company Datacom wants to partner with a council for the final design of new water utility software that is compliant with the government’s new Local Water Done Well programme.
Datacom described its Water Asset Intelligence platform (WAI) as a “ready to go” pre-configured platform that would support councils opting to establish a council-controlled organisation (CCO) for the planning and management of water services.
Local Water Done Well is the government’s replacement for the previous government’s Three Waters plan to centralise the management of water supply and sanitation in New Zealand,
“Ensuring WAI has been co-developed with a council and has council input during the design phase is really important to us,” said Datacom managing director Justin Gray.
“Ultimately this platform is designed to support their needs so collaborating to get it right is key.”
The WAI software builds on Datacom’s existing cloud-based ERP platform Datascape, which Datacom said was being used by over three quarters of New Zealand councils.
Local Water Done Well requires councils to develop a water services delivery plan by September 2025 showing they can meet regulatory requirements, support growth and urban development and are financially sustainable.
In their plan, each council must provide a long-term assessment of their water infrastructure, how much they need to invest, and how they plan to finance and deliver it.
The WAI platform will enable councils that opt for a CCO model to bring together data management, IoT water metering, water network monitoring, water billing and support public consultation in an integrated, transparent way, Datacom said.
“Councils have a lot of decisions to make as they develop their water services delivery plan,” Gray said.
The platform also offered a foundation for councils looking to establish a regional multi-council organisation to manage water services in the longer term, he said.
The WAI platform will include asset management, customer management, staff and contractor management, geospatial management, finance, corporate operations and security management, record and knowledge management with public-facing web and mobile interfaces including billing portals.
Spending on the cancelled Three Waters “systems of record” project was $231.3 million at March 2024, the Department of Internal Affairs told Reseller News.
However, final costs were still being compiled and subject to fluctuations from the exit of contracts and other costs.