Setting a New Gold Standard for Governance with Resolve
Sutherland Shire Council
241,327
Brittany Macky
After more than a decade with the same meeting management solution, Sutherland Shire Council was ready to raise the standard of its meeting processes. In early 2026, council’s four-person governance team moved the organisation onto Resolve and, within two months, had introduced the platform across 17 different meetings, from council and executive meetings to community reference groups.
Governance Coordinator Brittany Macky shares what changed and why the team refused to settle for anything less than what they called a “gold-standard” system.
The Challenge: A Cumbersome, Fragmented Process
While Sutherland Shire’s meeting management system was familiar across the organisation, the process surrounding it had become increasingly cumbersome.
Preparing council papers required the team to work across multiple platforms: creating documents in the meeting management system, saving them to the council’s content management system, then transferring them into separate systems for publication to the website and distribution to councillors. It was a fragmented, manual process that added unnecessary steps to publishing every document.
That workload landed hardest on Fridays, when council papers were due to be published; and that delay would sometimes run into the later afternoon. This, combined with technical issues meant frustration for councillors trying to access their reports, and more support requests for Brittany's team to resolve.
“Our papers are published on Fridays, so it wasn’t unusual to still be making edits after 4:00 pm,” she said. “That was frustrating because we knew it could take another hour or more to get everything published.”
Councillor access created another layer of work. The previous portal experienced recurring glitches and didn’t provide one central place for councillors to find the information they needed, creating frustration for elected members and additional support requests for the governance team.
“Councillors experienced regular glitches and didn’t have one central place to find the information they needed, when they needed it,” Brittany said. “It meant more time sorting out problems before we could leave.”
“Our papers are published on Fridays, so it wasn’t unusual to still be making edits after 4:00 pm. That was frustrating because we knew it could take another hour or more to get everything published."
Choosing a System Worthy of the “Gold Standard”
When council began exploring alternatives, Brittany explains that while the brief was simple, they weren’t willing to make a move for the sake of moving. They wanted to consolidate a fragmented, multi-system process into a single platform without compromising on quality. And because meeting management sits at the centre of council operations with every report, every resolution and every public record running through it, the team set a high bar for any replacement.
“We were really keen to see what was out there, something that would do all of those things in the one spot for us, as opposed to having to do multiple steps in multiple different systems just to get this one task done,” Brittany said. “But we weren't going to move to something if it wasn't going to be a very clear improvement, with clear benefits - not just for one user group, but for multiple: us as staff, our councillors, and our community.”
“We weren't going to move to something if it wasn't going to be a very clear improvement, with clear benefits - not just for one user group, but for multiple: us as staff, our councillors, and our community.”
Delivering clear, measurable benefits for everyone involved in the meeting cycle became the benchmark against which the team assessed Resolve, and the standard they set out to achieve from day one.
Within two months, Resolve was supporting approximately 17 different meetings across council,
each managed by a different team with its own requirements.
Faster Agendas, More Consistent Papers
Because Sutherland’s previous solution was Word-based, formatting was never fully locked down. Anyone working on a document could change headings, fonts or spacing, creating inconsistencies across reports and placing the responsibility on governance staff to review and correct every paper before publication.
Resolve’s configurable templates removed that risk by building the council’s formatting requirements directly into each meeting type. Report authors can now focus on the content, while the governance team has confidence that every document will be presented consistently and professionally.
The impact extends beyond formatting. With less time spent checking and correcting individual reports, the team can move through the preparation process more efficiently. Agenda compilation has also been transformed: producing the council’s main agenda, which previously took hours of manual work, can now be completed in a matter of seconds.
“Resolve is so customisable that within all our different meetings, we can have them tweaked to be exactly what we need. It's helped with consistency; people don't even need to think about formatting; they just need to go in and put their copy in,” Brittany explained. “The first time one of our team members ran the council agenda in Resolve, it literally took seconds. She was like, ‘Is that it? Are we done?’”
“Resolve is so customisable that within all our different meetings, we can have them tweaked to be exactly what we need. It's helped with consistency; people don't even need to think about formatting; they just need to go in and put their copy in.”
For the council’s main paper alone, Resolve saves the team hours every three weeks. Other teams using Resolve have reported the same result: fewer steps and a much faster process. The efficiencies have flowed into other Friday deadlines too, with the weekly councillor newsletter now going out earlier and Fridays now finishing on time.
Confidence in the Governance Record
Resolve has also strengthened the integrity of Sutherland’s governance record by providing a clear history of every change; what was updated, when it happened and who made it. Brittany explains how this gives the team greater visibility and makes errors much easier to identify and resolve.
“It’s really easy to track those types of things to maintain that integrity. Previously, if there was a mistake somewhere, it was sometimes hard to identify, and it would take a long time to fix.”
“It’s really easy to track those types of things to maintain that integrity. Previously, if there was a mistake somewhere, it was sometimes hard to identify, and it would take a long time to fix.”
That difference became clear when a report was recently published with an incorrect image. The team quickly traced the issue, corrected it and republished the report within minutes, while preserving a complete version history.
Resolve now manages the entire process - from drafting and review through to direct website publication. This has removed unnecessary manual steps, reduced the risk of errors and given the team confidence that every change is tracked throughout the meeting cycle.
Bringing Councillors and Executives Along
For a system this central to council operations, adoption mattered as much as functionality. One-on-one training sessions gave councillors private, judgement-free time to ask questions and build confidence at their own pace.
Councillors who had always preferred paper forms for conflicts and amendments have started using Resolve instead - a genuine shift in behaviour that Brittany's team sees as a strong sign of trust in the new system.
“The feedback we've had from councillors has all been really positive. They're really enjoying the simplicity of the system, how easy it is to find what they need, and to make their notes against each report.”
“The feedback we've had from councillors has all been really positive."
Executive buy-in was built deliberately, not left to chance. The governance team brought leadership into the project early, giving executives a first look at Resolve during one of their weekly meetings at the very start of the year, and then kept them updated as the rollout progressed.
“It wasn’t a case of reaching June and suddenly saying, ‘Here it is, this is what everyone has to use now.’ The staggered rollout gave each team time to understand the system, receive the right training, ask questions and build confidence before going live. Having that process backed by strong support from the top and the team at Redman Solutions made the transition much smoother and helped everyone understand that this was an organisation-wide change.”
“Having that process backed by strong support from the top and the team at Redman Solutions made the transition much smoother and helped everyone understand that this was an organisation-wide change."
Scaling Fast: Seventeen Meetings in Two Months
Sutherland Shire went live with Resolve for its first meeting on 1 June 2026. From there, the rollout moved quickly and deliberately, bringing new meeting types on in stages so no single team (governance included) was overwhelmed.
Within two months, Resolve was being used across approximately 17 meetings, each managed by a different team with its own requirements. Brittany explains how this highlights Resolve’s flexibility in supporting a wide range of meeting types and workflows within a single, easy-to-use platform.
“Across our organisation we’re supporting a wide range of meeting types, from exec meetings and reference groups through to the planning panel and transport forum, all with their own different ways of working and levels of complexity. What’s been really impressive is how flexible Resolve is in adapting to all of that. It’s not a one-size-fits-all system; it allows each group to run their meetings in a way that suits them, while still keeping everything consistent and connected."
“What’s been really impressive is how flexible Resolve is in adapting to all of that. It’s not a one-size-fits-all system; it allows each group to run their meetings in a way that suits them, while still keeping everything consistent and connected."
"It’s been a pretty big piece of work making sure everyone’s got the right training and confidence to use it properly, but the system itself has made that transition a lot smoother because it can flex to fit so many different needs,” she said.
Rolling out to teams beyond governance also gave those responsible officers a chance to refresh processes they'd wanted to improve for years but had never had the time, or the system, to tackle.
A Better Experience for the Community
Sutherland Shire has an active and engaged community, and its public meeting portal previously relied on a patchwork of tools: livestreaming through YouTube, with business papers hosted separately again.
Two months after go-live, Brittany says the clearest sign of success has been silence. No confused queries about where to find minutes or how to watch a meeting, in a community the team knows would speak up if something wasn't working. Small, previously requested improvements, like bookmarked video timestamps, have quietly landed too.
One Word: Transformational
For councils considering a similar move, Brittany's advice was straightforward: don't wait, and don't be afraid to ask for exactly what you want.
“Don't hesitate to start the process; get the ball rolling and consider what else is out there. If you've got a vision of what you want your system to look like, ask. With Redman, it was never a flat-out ‘no’. The system is so configurable - it was always, here's an option, or here's another way to do it.”
Two months on from go-live, and with a project that touched nearly every corner of the organisation now behind them, Brittany sums up the shift in a single word — one first used by a colleague watching an early demonstration of Resolve, and one she says has stuck for good reason.
“Transformational. I think that sums up the feedback we've had across the organisation really nicely - people are going, wow, this is such an improvement, this will make our lives and our processes so much easier.”
“Transformational. I think that sums up the feedback we've had across the organisation really nicely - people are going, wow, this is such an improvement, this will make our lives and our processes so much easier."