Use Case Spotlight: Planning & Control for Local Government

Impact Information Management uses Tangelo to help streamline the budget and annual report publishing process for Dutch governments.

Summary: Reporting for local governments is mandated and complicated. Tangelo offers a simple way to create and publish budgets and annual reports, but there’s more to Planning and Control. With the help of Tangelo’s reporting software, Impact Information Management offers a complete solution for Planning and Control, streamlining the collection and organization of data, and then the publication of budgets and annual reports. All of this makes it easier to inform and communicate with their constituents.

Across the world, local governments are the backbone of a country. No two are really the same. In Australia, local governments, or councils, form the third tier of government, below federal and states or territories. New Zealand's regions, cities, and districts serve as local authorities, the second tier of government in the country. The Netherlands has provinces, councils, or gemeenten, and also water boards (waterschappen and hoogheemraadschappen), due to the country's emphasis on water management.

One thing they all share is their Planning and Control cycle. Each government plans and budgets for coming years, and then monitors and controls spending.

They will then publish budgets and annual reports every year, informing the community (constituents) about operations, activities, and achievements. Reporting must be open and transparent, outlining goals, initiatives, and financial plans. Overall, these reports serve as a concrete way for local governments to demonstrate their accountability to constituents.

Planning and Control bears unique challenges:

  1. Organizing. You have to structure the budget, breaking down the numbers, mission, and vision into succinct, measurable goals.
  2. Measuring. Budgets must be monitored and measured, with insights into actual spending, the status of the goals, and more. This requires specific tools to effectively collect the data.
  3. Reporting. Finally, all of this information must be reported in an accessible, user-friendly way, requiring clever, creative ways to communicate effectively. Well-executed budgets and reports are the best ways to explain goals and spending to the community and get the support the initiatives need.

Planning and Control is complex. It requires efficient, intelligent ways to streamline the process.

Tangelo simplifies the reporting obstacle

Tangelo helps you to easily create high-quality budgets and annual reports that allow you to effectively communicate with and engage citizens.

Our software allows for teams to collaboratively produce strategic reports that focus on messaging and communicating necessary information to constituents. You can work to populate content from Excel and build dynamic data-driven visuals like charts and graphs. You can manage the process the entire time, assigning tasks for your team. At the end, publish or print your report for the community.

Tangelo and Impact Information Management partner to streamline the process for Dutch local governments

Tangelo partnered with Impact Information Management, a company specializing in IBM Cognos BI, to make the planning and control process even easier for provinces, councils, and water boards in The Netherlands.

Impact Information Management’s solutions effectively address all three obstacles

  1. Organizing. Using an application developed in IBM Cognos BI, Impact Information Management can help break down the budget into small items with measurable goals presented in an effective and clear tree structure.
  2. Measuring. Impact Information Management uses IBM Cognos BI in conjunction with an add-on tool, called Apparo, to collect numerical data as well as comments for easy analysis.
  3. Reporting. Using the Tangelo-Cognos XML Interface, local governments can easily collect and link to planning and control data, comments, and analyses, and present the information in tables, charts, and goal-focused reporting indicators.

The solution is completed with Impact Information Management’s three additional modules, Risk Management, Deviations & Forecasting, and Planning & Control Calendar.

And, in addition to detailed and complex PDF and website formats, we can also publish reports in web apps, to effectively share a high-level summary of the information in user-friendly, visually appealing ways.