Cycles of Neglect
Local Government's Costly Habit of Catch-Up Spending
Local governments that wait 10 years or more between major technology investments are not investing in their future—they are just playing catch-up. I call this paradox the Deferred Investment Trap.
Background
Local governments face a paradox when it comes to technology spending. On one hand, they recognise the importance of technology for efficient service delivery and modernisation. While on the other, they fail to allocate consistent funding, at an appropriate level, for ongoing technology sustainability.
Instead, they often make large, reactive investments only when systems become outdated or fail, perhaps every decade or more, rather than providing continuous, proactive support. This paradox reflects the tension that exists between understanding the value of technology and not committing the necessary resources to sustain it over time.
But let’s not equivocate, the latter is not technology investment. It is in every respect an approach akin to "crisis spending" in healthcare, where turning a blind eye to a thousand seemingly insignificant things compounds over time and ultimately leads to the need for costly emergency interventions because something has broken down.
The Road to All or Nothing
In the broader context of IT operations, the "thousand little things" go far beyond routine tasks like software updates and patching. They include vital activities such as maintaining the governance and quality of data in systems, enforcing proper decision-making processes for system changes, and resisting the temptation to make seemingly harmless exceptions "just this one time."
Decisions like skipping a formal requirements analysis for a quick fix or allowing poor-quality data to accumulate in a core property or customer database can, over time, lead to systemic inefficiencies, technical debt, and long-term instability. Not to mention poor customer experiences.
The list is long. Consider other key areas, such as integrating systems, aligning technology with business processes, and ensuring robust user training. These are also part of this intricate web of daily responsibilities. Each of these tasks, though often small in the moment, plays a critical role in the long-term health and effectiveness of a council’s technology ecosystem. When neglected, they compound over time, leading to costly disruptions, system breakdowns, and reactive spending.
To paraphrase Maximus, “What we do today echoes in eternity.”
Achieving these outcomes requires more than just technology itself; it demands the right resource structures (skills, people, financial, organisational) to manage and continuously improve these daily processes to prevent these "thousand little things" from snowballing into larger crises. That is the essence of true technology investment—not just spending on systems, but building the capacity, skills, and framework needed to manage them effectively over time.
Neglecting regular investment in technology eventually leads to costly and reactive measures by postponing the moment when significant costs must be paid. This is often referred to as "kicking the can down the road." It describes the act of delaying necessary action or decisions, especially those that involve significant costs or effort, with the understanding that the issue will need to be addressed eventually—often at a higher cost or with greater consequences. In the context of technology, this means postponing necessary investments, which ultimately leads to larger, more expensive, and reactive measures.
Essential Points
Catch-Up Spending vs. True Investment
When local governments embark on large-scale technology implementations, it is often in an attempt to address years of underfunding and neglect. A new system is introduced, replacing one that’s outdated and no longer fit for purpose. Maybe its with the same supplier, maybe its a new one. The budget allocation for these projects is substantial. But is the focus on creating a more aligned and sustainable technology environment or just getting the new system up and running?
True technology investment goes beyond system implementation—it is about building a sustainable environment where systems are continuously maintained, upgraded, and seamlessly integrated with other vital data sources. This requires more than just financial resources; even if you are moving to a SaaS or PaaS cloud environment it involves hiring or upskilling staff to effectively manage these systems and ensure that day-to-day operations run smoothly.
Regular attention to maintenance and integration is essential not only to prevent system degradation but to empower the council to thrive on the valuable information within these systems. By investing in the people, processes, and technology necessary for proactive management, councils can leverage their data to drive better decision-making, innovation, and long-term success.
In contrast, a catch-up spend represents a form of firefighting—an attempt to solve problems that have been allowed to fester for years. These problems arise not necessarily because the technology was flawed to begin with, but because the ongoing attention to business analysis, data governance, upgrades, and system health checks that should have taken place were neglected. By the time a catch-up spend is approved, the damage has already been done and the challenge is enormous.
The Hidden Costs of Neglect
Over the years, I’ve worked with many councils whose annual technology budgets fall well below industry or national benchmarks. In fact, in the past 25 years, I can count on one hand the number of local governments that meet any kind of viability threshold for sustainable technology investment.
The consequences of neglecting regular technology investments are significant. Chief among them is system atrophy, where outdated technology can no longer meet the evolving needs of the council or the communities it serves. In this state, systems become not only inefficient but also liabilities, potentially falling out of compliance with statutory regulations and legislation. This neglect leads to a cascade of issues: data silos develop, integration with newer technologies becomes increasingly challenging, and services slow down or, in some cases, break down entirely.
This is the type of neglect that leads to emergency spending.
When systems fail or are no longer able to keep up with the demands of the community, councils are forced to make sudden, large multi-million dollar investments to replace them. This process is disruptive and costly, but often becomes necessary due to years of neglect, though it still fails to address the underlying issues. Implementing a new system does not magically solve problems if the council still lacks the skills and processes to manage it over time. Interestingly, I have often observed that the cost of remediation work tends to closely mirror the total amount of past underspending on technology.
Investing in Skills and Integration
Real investment in business technology requires more than just financial capital; it requires a commitment to human capital by building the right skills within the right parts of the organisation. And that means not just in IT. Technology alone cannot solve problems. People—skilled staff who are both experts in their field and understand the systems, can troubleshoot issues, and continuously improve processes—are essential.
In addition, technology investment focuses on creating an ecosystem where different systems can easily integrate with one another. Many city governments operate with outdated, standalone systems that don’t communicate with each other. This leads to inefficiencies and a lack of transparency, as different departments are working with fragmented data. Both employees and customers suffer.
One of the uncomfortable truths in the local government sector is that this includes different solutions acquired from the same vendor.
Investing in integration technologies and ensuring that data flows seamlessly across the organisation is mandatory for maximising the value of any new technology. It is a 21st century capability that cannot be deferred to a third party. It is part of the development of internal human expertise that ensures long-term success.
Maintenance Schmaintenance
Paying annual maintenance fees is no more a true technology investment than paying for health insurance is a cure for a potential heart attack. Maintenance fees are merely a part of keeping systems operational—they cover the basics but they don't advance the system in any way and certainly don’t prevent longitudinal failure. It is simply a limited insurance policy to protect against an environment implemented at one point in time. But it does not fundamentally push for improvements or modernisation. True investment is about more than just keeping systems running. It’s about improving them over time, ensuring they remain fit for purpose, and driving better outcomes for citizens.
My Take
More local governments should be undertaking large-scale technology programs, especially given the level of underinvestment across the sector. But those that wait 10 years or more between technology upgrades aren’t planning for the future—they’re simply playing catch-up.
While large transformation programs may receive significant upfront funding to replace or implement new systems, the failure to adjust the IT budget is at the heart of the long-term problem, as it limits the ability to sustain and evolve the technology environment after the initial intervention.
Without this uptick, the underlying issue remains unresolved.
Real technology investment isn’t just about IT but it is about establishing a well-resourced, ongoing IT framework that supports the continuous growth and changing requirements that every departmental head experiences.
Without proper long-term funding, even the most ambitious transformation programs are destined to fall into IT disrepair. Systems will degrade, inefficiencies will regrow, and the benefits of the initial investment will erode, leading to wasted resources and subpar public outcomes.
While avoiding appropriate levels of technology investment may seem convenient in the short term (for you), it only delays the inevitable (for the organisation).
Reach out through the app or on LinkedIn if you’d like to dive deeper into potential solutions or to understand the broader considerations for these solutions in your corporate systems roadmap. Or perhaps you know someone exploring this area. If so, feel free to share this link with them.