The option to lodge and pay for services such as building
consents and make dog registration payments online has been
highly successful, Lakes Environmental chief executive Hamish
Dobbie said.
For the month of November 80% of building consents came
through online, Mr Dobbie said.
''So, it's been very successful so far ... obviously, we will
be looking to put more services online.''
He said future online services could include registering new
dogs and liquor licensing.
Although he said Lakes Environmental was ''happy for people
to come to us with paper'', there were advantages for both
the company and customers with the online option since
electronic documents were easier to process and could be
lodged without visiting the office.
At the Queenstown Lakes District Council's finance and
corporate committee meeting in September it was revealed
Lakes Environmental, which is council-controlled, made a
profit before tax of $6479 for the financial year ended June
30, 2012, compared with $248,028 the previous year.
A key expense was employee costs, although this had been
reduced by 22% since 2007, and Mr Dobbie and chairwoman Anne
Urlwin said more services would be made available online in a
bid to reduce counter hours and subsequently save money.
Since then, Mr Dobbie said counter hours had not yet been
reduced, but with the number of people coming to the counter
decreasing they would be.
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