1.1 Introduction
Computerized local government council involves the use of computers to carry out the functions of local government. Every activities of local government are documented with help of computer system. Computerized local government council required people with computer knowledge. Local government is a collection of public bodies with authority over a subdivision of a significant area of a country’s territory. It is either the third tier in federal countries or the second and third tiers in unitary countries. The lowest tier of government in each state and Local authorities are usually elected. There may be more than one tier of local government in each country. Local governments are administrative offices that are smaller than a state. The term is used to contrast with offices at nation-state level, which are referred to as the central government, national government, or (where appropriate) federal government. In a local government, there are data to be collected, processed and stored for reference purposes, especially those concerning the personnel in the local government.
As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.
1.2 Background of Study
The development of personnel management dates back to the period of World War I around the year 1915 and more recently to the human relations movement of 1935 − 1950. In one of the studies of Elton mayor, he discovered that psychological factors as well as social factors influence individuals at work rather than physical factors.
Traditionally, it was practiced in homes where the father is the head of the family. It was he who planned what the family should do, the type of farming, size and where to sell the harvested products. His wives and children helped in the process, no external recruitment was involved, so the more wives and children a man had, the more likely it was that the family be well-of. The recent practices of personnel management in Nigeria is tied up with history and development of the public services, private companies and civil services.
The governmental pattern, a quilt work of conflicting and overlapping jurisdictions, establishes the framework for providing public services and facilities and land development regulations such as zoning, subdivision regulations and building codes. This structure, highly complex, includes cities, counties, special districts, and state and federal agencies. The typical urban community has at least five governments serving its people — county, city, school district, state and federal. Such a pattern usually does not coincide with the realities of the economic and social community. Communication among these governments in the same locality is usually minimal; the activities of one are often contradictory to those of another. All these work done in a local government can be enhance with the help of computer.
Computer-based information systems are systems that tend to have clearly defined inputs and outputs that enable and provide necessary facilities for accurately and efficiently managing an organizational process. It could be sales, order or record keeping of staff. Information system is a collection of people, procedures, software, hardware and data. Connectivity allows computers to connect and share information, thereby greatly expanding the capability and usefulness of an information system. Computer-based information systems are meant to reduce the stress in managing businesses or organizational procedures.
1.3 Statement of Problem
Investigation revealed that local government works involves the use of ledger, proof sheets, balance books etc which are manual in recording and keeping of their information. One of the biggest difficulties faced by manual method is:
- Handling records beset with problems. The record are not kept well and retrieval as 'very difficult.
- Loss of records is always common to manual auditing as there is no computerized way of storing the information contained in these records.
- Sequel to this problem, local government need to be computerized.
- Calculation can sometime be wrong. In most cases, this has through oft many accounts and names which resulted to suspense account being opened and could not be closed unless as a charge or credit to profit and loss account.
1.4 Aim and Objectives of the Study
The aim of the study is to design and implement a Computerized Local Government Council Administration. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows to develop an application software that will:
- Implement a functional local government council personnel information management system;
- Create an effective alternative and efficient system to cater for this specific tasks;
- Ascertain whether the existing system is adequate; and
- Highlight inadequacies in the existing system through which computer application can minimize when computer is used effectively in the organization to eliminate inefficiency.
1.5 Significance of Study
The significance of the study is that it will provide an integrated system for the local government to manage personnel information, eliminate flat file organization, maintain an electronic database, facilitate the presentation of human resource information reports and generally organize the operations of human resources management to meet the basic human resource management information need of the organization.
This study will be of immense benefit to academic students and other researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.
1.6 Scope of Study
The scope of the research is focused on the design and implementation of a Computerized Local Government Council Administration using Ikot Ekpene local government Secretariat as a case study.
1.7 Limitations of the Study
During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:
- Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
- Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
- Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
- Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet).
1.8 Definition of Terms
Personnel: It is a department in an organization that deals with employees records, hiring or retirement.
Management: It is the co-ordination of all the resources of an organization through the process of planning, organization, directing and controlling.
