A couple of recent stories paint different pictures of how councils are coping with the staggering pace of change in the internet age.
In the first, councils appear to be lagging behind in the race to keep up with an increasingly internet-savvy public.
That is the impression given by a report on the adoption of 'robotic process automation' – RPA – by international analysts GlobalData.
Nearly half of local authorities, according to their survey, are not yet ready to reap the benefits of RPA in which electronic 'bots' crawl around their systems making sure they are all joined up and working efficiently.
This compares poorly with the rest of the public sector where only one in five organisations declared themselves not ready.
With the growing use of smartphones and social media, GlobalData declared, people increasingly expect public services to be delivered through 'digital channels'.
There may be some truth in this account, though a single survey cannot tell the whole story.
A key challenge identified by GlobalData to the take-up of RPA is the cost of implementation – no small matter when council budgets are being massively squeezed to the point where it now seems commonplace for them to announce they will only be offering the basic legal minimum services in future.
As is often the case, medium and long term savings can only be achieved through substantial short-term investment, but with no money to spare this is often just not possible.
Similarly, a further barrier to implementation is the need to train staff up to manage the new systems – there is no point in investing in them if nobody knows how they work.
Again this is likely to be a resource issue. Training staff costs money which is currently in short supply to say the least.
However, another recent story suggests a more optimistic outlook.
The Yorkshire Purchasing Organisation has set up a £250m deal for councils to buy the latest technology to help improve care services.
This, say analysts Tussell, could transform care as staff are increasingly able to call on systems to help save time, raise the quality of monitoring and improve communications.
The YPO's 'dynamic purchasing system' will give councils the option of buying from pre-registered and checked suppliers who will be able to sign up over a period of four years, meaning the latest developments will always be available.
It is a flexible way of enabling councils to try technology without having to spend time searching the market place for reliable products.
As always funding is an issue and the current catastrophic shortage of cash may put the lid on any meaningful advances in local authority service delivery.
But local government has shown huge willingness to change in recent years and it seems likely councils up and down the country will be looking at the latest technological offerings.
Some may prove invaluable while others turn out to be little more than gimmicks.
But the judicious adoption of systems that offer tangible benefits must have a part to play in improving services and delivering value for money. Technology is not the answer, but it might help.