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[1]Christchurch City Council logo

 
Good morning Mr Palmer,

 

Thank you for your email. 

 

We are handling your request under the Local Government Official
Information and Meetings Act 1987 (LGOIMA). We have forwarded it to the
appropriate Christchurch City Council staff, and we will provide a
response or update within 20 working days of the date we received your
request. If we are unable to respond to your request by then, we will
notify you of an extension of that timeframe.

 

If you have any queries, please feel free to contact me. If any additional
factors come to light which are relevant to your request, please do not
hesitate to contact me so that these can be taken into account.

 

Kind regards,

 

Ana Macadie
Information Advisor
Official Information Team

 

From: [email address]
Sent: April 19 08:11:40
To:[email address]
Subject: FW: Official Information request - Amount of Money Spent on
Machine Learning to Analyse Dog Barks

 

 

From: David Palmer <[FOI #15202 email]>
Sent: Saturday, 17 April 2021 8:48 AM
To: Official Information <[email address]>
Subject: Official Information request - Amount of Money Spent on Machine
Learning to Analyse Dog Barks

 

Dear Christchurch City Council,

I would like a breakdown of the cost of the project you are currently
running to use machine learning to analyse recordings of dogs barking. I
would like this cost broken down by operational costs and human costs of
the project, per year since the project was started. I would also like a
breakdown of where funding for this project comes from (eg rates, central
government, etc).

I would also like a copy of any internal proposals used to justify the
cost of the project, including any alternative solutions that were
considered and their estimated cost.

I would also like a list of other R&D projects the city council is working
on that make use of machine learning to analyse data.

Yours faithfully,
David Palmer

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[1]Christchurch City Council logo

 
Dear Mr Palmer,

 

I'm sorry you had to follow up. It was necessary to consult further with
staff in relation to your third and fourth questions. My apologies you
were not advised of this.

 

Please find the following information in response to your request:

 

I would like a breakdown of the cost of the project you are currently
running to use machine learning to analyse recordings of dogs barking. I
would like this cost broken down by operational costs and human costs of
the project, per year since the project was started.

 

 

$29880 has been spent on the project to date

Another $5k to get to production

Web page approx. $5k

Total expected costs: $40k

 

329 hours of time has been set aside for this project.

 

Expected return = 240 hours per month saved in listening to audio files.

So return on investment is approx. 3 months.

 

 

I would also like a breakdown of where funding for this project comes from
(eg rates, central government, etc).

 

This work was funded via our Capital Projects, which are not rates funded.

 

I would also like a copy of any internal proposals used to justify the
cost of the project, including any alternative solutions that were
considered and their estimated cost.

No proposal was created for this.  As part of the Council’s strategy to
modernise the our Business Intelligence tools we have funds dedicated to
prove the worth of our Cloud Platform.  We do this by identifying four use
cases each year throughout the Council where we can use Machine Learning
to reduce the manual effort.  The acceptance criteria for this role was to
reduce the time it takes to create a report on the frequency of a barking
dog.  The example given in the use case was the Animal Control team do up
to 70 reports each month, with a report taking up to 17 hours each time
for an Animal Control Officer to listen to the audio from people’s
back-yards.  We thought this was an excellent candidate to use Machine
Learning on.

 

I would also like a list of other R&D projects the city council is working
on that make use of machine learning to analyse data.

We have completed three other projects this year using Machine Learning to
analyse:

* Graffiti Images to identify similarities between pieces of “art” and
create dossier’s on “artists”.  This has resulted in at least one
criminal conviction to date.
* Survey responses to identify sentiment and classifying comments over
top. 

* One for an internal HR survey reducing effort from 6 weeks of
manually reviewing and classifying each comment to less than 1
week.
* One for another survey where time has been reduced from 2 weeks
to 2 days.
* This has both improved the consistency of applying themes,
allowing the experts to focus on the unusual comments and
spending more time doing deeper analysis.

 

We are always looking for better use cases and are hoping to apply the
tools to things such as analysing cracks in pipes after a crawler has
videoed every kilometre of underground pipe, which roads are more
susceptible to potholes, amongst others.

 

 

I hope that this information is of assistance, however if you need
clarification please let me know.

 

 

 

You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of
this decision. Information about how to make a complaint is available
at [2]www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or free-phone 0800 802 602.

 

 

 

 

Kind regards,

 

 

Ana Macadie
Information Advisor
Official Information Team

 

From: [FYI request #15202 email]
Sent: May 18 15:50:15
To:[email address]
Subject: Re: [ Ticket: 401924 ] FW: Official Information request - Amount
of Money Spent on Machine Learning to Analyse Dog Barks

Dear Ana,

More than 20 working days have elapsed since the council received my
request, but I have yet to receive a response. Can you please provide a
reason for the delay and when I can expect a response?

Thanks for your time,
David Palmer

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[1]Christchurch City Council logo

 
Dear Mr Palmer,

 

I'll go back to the team and ask for this information.

 

Kind regards,

 

Ana Macadie
Information Advisor
Official Information Team

 

From: [FOI #15202 email]
Sent: May 18 16:35:43
To:[email address]
Subject: Re: [ Ticket: 401924 ] FW: Official Information request - Amount
of Money Spent on Machine Learning to Analyse Dog Barks

Hi Ana,

Thanks for your help. Does the costs quoted include the salaries paid by
the council to developers/contractors working on the project (human
costs)? If not, is it possible to provide that information?

This amount could be calculated as hourly pay multiplied by the number of
hours they worked on the project.

Thanks,
David Palmer

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[1]Christchurch City Council logo

 
Good morning Mr Palmer,

 

Staff have advised that the costs provided are inclusive of staff salaries
as the majority of the work has been done using in-house expertise.  We
have a charge out rate we apply to any capital projects for our staff.

 

The non-staff costs are very minor for this as it’s mainly creating code.

 

I hope that this information is of assistance.

 

 

Kind regards,

 

 

Ana Macadie
Information Advisor
Official Information Team

 

From: [FOI #15202 email]
Sent: May 18 16:35:43
To:[email address]
Subject: Re: [ Ticket: 401924 ] FW: Official Information request - Amount
of Money Spent on Machine Learning to Analyse Dog Barks

Hi Ana,

Thanks for your help. Does the costs quoted include the salaries paid by
the council to developers/contractors working on the project (human
costs)? If not, is it possible to provide that information?

This amount could be calculated as hourly pay multiplied by the number of
hours they worked on the project.

Thanks,
David Palmer

show quoted sections