Nestled in the picturesque southeast region of Victoria, Australia, the Cardinia Shire Council has emerged as a shining example of how local government organisations can harness data intelligence for the betterment of their community.
The partnership with ActiveXchange has enabled Cardinia Shire Council – through actionable data insights – to effectively improve resource allocation and financial efficiency, increase employee engagement and motivation, drive positive impacts within their community through data-driven decision making.
Over the past couple of years, the Council has strategically leveraged a range of data reporting services offered by ActiveXchange, establishing data intelligence as the cornerstone for decision-making across multiple facets of their operations.
ActiveXchange scoped and produced a Sport Investment Planning (IPM) Report for the Council to inform part of their Active Cardinia Strategy, which was published in August 2023.
The IPM Report showed:
ActiveXchange worked closely with Inside Edge, one of our Consultant Partners, who published the Active Cardinia Strategy after receiving the IPM report details.
A key outcome was the development of a planning methodology to inform Council’s decision making for the future provision of sporting infrastructure in Cardinia.
ActiveXchange completed two Social Value Reports for Cardinia Life, the premier indoor health and recreational facility in Cardinia Shire. The facility is managed by Aligned Leisure and consists of 8 indoor sports courts, a 25 metre and 12 metre pool, and fitness facilities.
Delivered in partnership with KPMG, and aligned to the Australian Sports Commission’s national reporting principles, this report provides the estimated dollar value savings a facility generates as a result of its users being and meeting the Federal Physical Activity and Exercise guidelines consistently. The values are quantified against a number of chronic and acute health indicators, such as dementia, cancers, heart disease, improved productivity and reduced risk of drowning.
Cardinia Life had some outstanding results and won ActiveXchange’s quarterly Social Value Award for Q3 2023.
Saving an impressive $3,317,916 within their local community over the last 12 months, and experiencing a 5.06% quarterly growth in Social Value, this was achieved through strong performances across the key indicators, including:
Cardinia Shire is using the quantified social value to support its case for expanding the facility – backed by strong results from the Learn to Swim program and projections showing even greater impact if the expansion goes ahead.
Furthermore, an IPM Report was completed for Cardinia Life to assess the current competition against the potential demand, identify optimal capacity and programming and sector benchmarking to test the viability and seek opportunities.
The IPM Report showed:
The ActiveXchange Data Team, alongside Sarah Noble from the Active Village Project, has been developing an AI extension to the Movement Data platform – Movement IQ – which forecasts the optimal intervention by type of facility/space and type of resident catchment, to better activate spaces and places – and ultimately communities.
Cardinia Shire Council is part of this pilot project alongside a collection of other LGA’s in Victoria. The councils have provided data on interventions that have been made to activate spaces and places over the last two years, and then used Movement Data to identify the follow-on outcomes.
This project is currently ongoing, but the council will be able to use these data insights to accurately quantify the movement increases these specific interventions have created. Moving forward, the model will be able to forecast the activity level impacts of future interventions.
Local governments face complex challenges and evolving community needs, and Cardinia Shire’s utilisation of ActiveXchange’s data intelligence services has produced the following outcomes which have positively impacted their local community:
The insights we’ve gained from ActiveXchange’s analysis of our sport, leisure and recreation landscape have provided us with a stronger evidence base with which to make decisions. The team have been great to work with; engaging, accessible and knowledgeable. I look forward to continuing our work with ActiveXchange as we deliver sport and recreation opportunities for our community.
