Assurity finalist for Tasman council testing project

Assurity has been named a finalist at the European Software Testing Awards for its work with Tasman District Council on a public sector software testing and quality assurance project.

The nomination relates to a multi-year programme at the New Zealand council to replace a 35-year-old bespoke legacy system with a cloud-based customer relationship management platform.

As part of the rollout, Assurity worked with the council on quality assurance improvements, an independent testing strategy and test automation. The aim was to reduce delivery risk while helping the council build its internal testing capability.

The programme began under then-Chief Information Officer Steve Manners, who set an early goal of embedding quality assurance into the wider digital transformation. The council sought external support to fill a capability gap while changing how internal teams approached testing and release preparation.

The work involved frontline subject matter experts, change managers and business analysts across the council, many of whom were working outside their usual roles during the transition. The project team also had to manage the technical debt tied to the outgoing legacy platform.

Assurity said it created testing tools, templates and automated frameworks for the council from scratch. It said this helped the project team identify and fix hundreds of issues in the test environment before the system went live.

The automation work included a suite of more than 50 automated tests, reducing daily test execution time to 4.5 hours from eight hours and supporting the launch of the CRM back-end in October 2025.

Council Response

Valerie Aull, Practise Lead - Business Improvement at Tasman District Council, said the two organisations were a strong fit from the outset and that the work improved staff confidence.

“When Assurity came in, we could immediately see the fit,” said Valerie Aull, Practise Lead - Business Improvement at Tasman District Council.

“They didn't just bring quality assurance skills; they established a connection with our team to co-design a strategy focused on our priorities. There's a lot at stake with projects like this, and we wanted to get it right the first time. After the work was delivered by Assurity, the team was re-energised, more confident, and more capable.”

Assurity said the engagement drew on embedded test managers and consultants, as well as automation engineers from its cloud platform team and staff in Manila. It described the project as both a delivery exercise and a transfer of knowledge to the council's permanent teams.

“The true success of this project lies in the shoulder-to-shoulder collaboration between the council and our embedded test managers and consultants,” said Linda Street, Delivery Manager at Assurity.

“By bringing in our Automation*Flex* engineers across Assurity Cloud Platform and our team in Manila to build the automated suite alongside TDC's staff, we were able to de-risk the immediate rollout while seamlessly transferring capability to the council's team for the future.”

Reg Prasad, General Manager, Practise & Solutions at Assurity, linked the project to a broader approach that puts testing and capability transfer at the start of major technology change.

“Our partnership with Tasman District Council proves that investing in quality engineering and capability transfer at the start of a digital transformation mitigates risk and drives sustainable success,” said Reg Prasad, General Manager, Practise & Solutions at Assurity.

“Our embedded teams worked tirelessly to transition the council from a reactive testing approach to a proactive, automated quality framework.”

Leadership View

The council's senior leadership team also backed the programme after the nomination was announced. Internal responsibility for future integrations now sits with teams led by Chief Digital Officer Peter Darlington, according to details released by the organisations.

“Assurity fundamentally changed the game for our digital operations at Tasman. Together, our teams navigated significant complexities to deliver this programme, and we simply would not have reached this milestone without Assurity as our QA partner,” said Peter Darlington, Chief Digital Officer at Tasman District Council.