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Councils are under growing pressure to make community engagement more transparent and inclusive. A new partnership with Go Vocal gives them the tools to do it, backed by AI that turns thousands of resident comments, written or handwritten, into clear, actionable insight.

Strengthening Digital Democracy Through Strategic Collaboration

Redman Solutions has announced a strategic partnership with Go Vocal, bringing a comprehensive digital participation platform to local governments across Australia and New Zealand. The partnership combines Redman Solutions' understanding of local government operations with Go Vocal's digital participation technology, including its AI-powered analysis engine, giving councils an integrated way to strengthen democratic processes and build community trust through transparent, accessible engagement.

As residents increasingly expect digital channels for participation and input, councils need tools that support meaningful dialogue while maintaining the security, compliance, and transparency standards their communities expect, without drowning staff in the manual work of making sense of it all.

Also Available Alongside Resolve and Envisio

Redman Solutions also provides Resolve meeting management and Envisio strategic planning solutions for local government. Go Vocal adds community engagement, and the AI analysis that comes with it, to that same portfolio, giving councils the option to work with one ANZ-based provider across engagement, governance, and strategic planning.

For councils already using Resolve or Envisio, adding Go Vocal means bringing community engagement into the same relationship, from a partner already familiar with how their council operates, rather than a technically connected system.

How the Platform Supports Councils

The Go Vocal platform, delivered through Redman Solutions, gives councils tools for designing, managing, and reporting on community engagement initiatives, including:

  • Surveys and idea generation
  • Participatory budgeting
  • Project feedback
  • Form Sync, which uses OCR to digitise handwritten responses from paper surveys and in-person forms, so pen-and-paper feedback joins the same dataset as everything collected online
  • AI-powered analysis that automatically tags, summarises, and surfaces trends across all of that feedback
  • Real-time dashboards and reporting on participation patterns

Community members can see how their input is being considered and track the progress of initiatives, helping councils demonstrate accountability. The platform is also designed to support accessible engagement, helping councils reach a broader and more representative cross-section of their community, including groups that have traditionally been underrepresented in consultation processes.

The Engagement Challenge Facing Local Government

Local governments across Australia and New Zealand face growing expectations to involve communities in decision-making. Traditional consultation methods, while valuable, can struggle to reach diverse population segments or offer the flexibility that residents now expect.

Many councils juggle multiple engagement initiatives at once, need to track participation across different demographics, and must report on consultation outcomes in ways that build public confidence. The administrative burden of coordinating these activities, and of manually reading through every open-ended response, can strain governance teams and pull resources away from strategic priorities.

From Raw Feedback to Clear Insight, in a Fraction of the Time

This is where Go Vocal's AI analysis changes what's possible for a governance team. Instead of staff working through hundreds or thousands of survey responses and comments line by line, the platform's AI automatically tags and organises input, surfaces recurring themes, and identifies patterns across demographics and lived experience, connections that are easy to miss when you're reading response by response.

Not all feedback arrives online, and the AI analysis doesn't leave it out of the picture. Go Vocal's Form Sync tool uses OCR to digitise handwritten responses from paper surveys and forms, whether they're collected at a community pop-up, a library, or a town hall meeting, so pen-and-paper input from residents who prefer to engage offline is brought into the same dataset as everything gathered digitally, and swept into the same AI-generated insights and reports.

The AI can instantly generate clear, readable summaries of large feedback datasets, giving council teams a ready-made starting point for reports to elected members and the community. Every summary stays fully editable and stays linked back to the original responses, so nothing is lost in translation and every insight can be checked against what residents actually said.

The impact on workload is real. Cambridge City Council, one of Go Vocal's customers, reported saving around 10 hours, roughly 50%, of the time it previously spent analysing and summarising free-text survey feedback. For governance teams already stretched thin, that's time freed up to focus on what the feedback actually means, and what to do about it, rather than the mechanics of processing it.

Local Expertise Across Australia and New Zealand

Redman Solutions brings local government experience to the partnership, with implementation and ongoing support built around the legislative frameworks, governance structures, and operational realities of Australian and New Zealand councils. Councils receive hands-on assistance from initial planning through to launch, with training and onboarding tailored to their needs.

Support is delivered locally by teams based in Australia and New Zealand, who understand council timelines and priorities, helping the partnership evolve based on direct council feedback.

Councils already working with Redman Solutions can speak with their account manager about adding Go Vocal, and its AI analysis, to their Resolve or Envisio setup. If you're new to Redman Solutions and want to see the AI in action, get in touch with our team.