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      Risks of siloed council data: Lessons from Taupō District Council
      A guide for council leaders

      Risks of siloed council data: Lessons from Taupō District Council

      AskYourTeam

      By AskYourTeam on Sep 09, 2025.

      Risks of siloed council data: Lessons from Taupō District Council
      Table of contents
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      A councils guide to using perception data for better decisons

      A councils guide to using perception data for better decisons

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      Local councils are sitting on mountains of data. 
      Service requests, complaints, feedback forms, survey results, building logs, internal memos.

      Each team manages their own patch. But too often, those patches don’t connect. 

      The result?
      You miss the patterns.
      You miss the risks.
      You miss the insights that could change the game.
       

      What’s the real cost of disconnected data?

      It’s not just operational inefficiency (though that’s a big one).

      It’s safety risks that slip through the cracks. It’s community issues that don’t surface until they escalate.
      It’s time wasted digging for answers that should be obvious.

      For many councils, the intention is there, review the data, understand trends, act early.

      But when that data lives in separate systems, owned by separate teams, it becomes almost impossible to get a true picture.

      Which is exactly why Taupō District Council’s story stands out.
       

      An insight uncovered changed everything

      Taupō DC uploaded a year’s worth of service request data into the AskYourTeam platform, pulling together what had previously been scattered across various systems.

      Within days, something unexpected appeared:

      86 addresses with suspected gang activity were identified.
      And fewer than 20% of those had been flagged before.

      That meant frontline staff, building inspectors, compliance officers, dog control teams, had been walking into properties with zero awareness of what they might be facing.

      A serious blind spot.
      A completely preventable risk.
       

      “It triggered a response from our executive and leadership team straight away to ensure that we enable the systems to effectively ensure the safety of our staff.”

      – Tania Russell, Community Engagement & Development Manager, Taupō District Council

       

      What changed?

      Council acted fast:
       
      • The flagged addresses were marked. Staff now get alerts and can bring police support if needed.
      • Service teams started using one shared dataset. It’s not just about who sees what, it’s about everyone seeing the same thing.
      • New checks were embedded into the workflow. Insights didn’t sit on a shelf, they translated into real action, quickly.


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      Why this matters for every council

      Taupō’s story isn’t an outlier, it’s a wake-up call.
      Every council has valuable signals sitting in plain sight, buried in siloed systems.

      AskYourTeam helps councils pull that data together so patterns are easier to spot, and decisions are grounded in more than gut feeling.

      Whether it’s safety, service delivery, or community confidence, integrated insight puts you ahead of the curve, not behind it.

      When teams share data, they don’t just share information.
      They share responsibility.
      They share awareness.
      They share impact.

      So the next time you think “we’ve already got the data” ask:
      Does everyone see the same picture?


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