ALL parish councils will be equipped with local area wireless computer systems within the next three months, according to Pam Thompson, director of management information systems (MIS) at the ministry of local government, community development and sport.

In January that ministry awarded a US$230,000-contract to IBM to install the local area wireless computer systems, in a move it said was geared at facilitating easy access to information by the councils, and by extension, reducing the time for the processing of building applications.

In making the announcement, Thompson said that equipping the councils with computerised technology was a concerted effort by the ministry to make the operations not only more manageable, but efficient as well.

In addition, she pointed out that the tardiness in granting building approvals “will be a thing of the past”, as the new system would speed up the process.

“Looking at the building application, we need to be able to speed up that process as it will give a kick-start to the construction industry. That can hardly happen without this kind of network being in place, so our customers can go to any local authority and find out exactly where their applications are,” she remarked.

Explaining how the wireless system worked, she noted that parish council employees within a two-mile radius would be able to access the network. However, they would need to have a programmed card for the machine that validated their identity before logging on, she told JIS News.

The MIS director said the road to computerisation began with the ministry purchasing “in excess of 400 computers, which were distributed throughout the local authorities last year”.

According to Thompson, hundreds of persons from the various local authorities had participated in computer training courses, which were facilitated by the ministry.

Persons familiar with the operation of computer systems and who have been identified by the councils, she said, would work alongside the ministry and be trained in how to administer and manage the wireless system in each local authority.

“Given the design and software selection that the ministry used in establishing the system, we are able to also manage and support this network infrastructure long distance. We can stay here at the ministry and actually respond to problems that people are having on their machines,” Thompson said.

On the successful implementation of the local area network system, a second phase involving a wide area network should come on stream in late summer, she stated.

Added Thompson: “This would open up a whole window of opportunity for us, because it now means that not only are local authorities able to communicate with themselves, they are able to communicate among themselves and with the ministry.”