Thanks for that.

Working from home is certainly different, as Armidale Regional Council CEO Susan Law found out this week when she made the transition.

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"Like a lot of organisations, I think it's a bit of a challenge to get ourselves set up to work remotely," she said.

"We have a daily meeting of the executive and some key people to just track how things are going.

"As far as we know, and obviously there were one or two hiccoughs to start with, but people are getting used to working remotely."

Mrs Law said for council's customer services, Monday was their first day of not providing face-to-face service, and so far, the new technology recently installed by council was proving worthwhile.

"We've had some challenges from some staff live in areas where the connectivity is not as strong as we would like, but we are managing," she said.

"We're providing those staff with SIM cards so they can connect through council facilities.

"Most of our meetings are now held electronically, and certainly our meetings with external people, including the advisory committees, which are being rescheduled to take place electronically."

Mrs Law said the big difficulties surrounding all councils at the moment was their monthly meetings.

"At the moment the legislation is such that in order for councillors to vote they need to be physically present [in the meeting]," she said.

"We can run all sorts of other meetings electronically, but when it comes to an full council meeting the councillors need to be present.

"I suspect that the Office of Local Government has had a lot of representations from a lot of councils, not just ours. We await their advice."

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