A report commissioned by the local government managers' association has recommended a radical shake-up of local councils in Western Australia, including a reduction in the number of councils from 142 to 30.
The report comes at a time when the state government and the WA Local Government Association (which represents elected councillors) are taking a cautious approach to reform.
LGMA state president Eric Lumsden told WA Business News that major change was inevitable, with many local councils not being financially viable and unable to deal with contemporary challenges.
Mr Lumsden is currently chief executive of the City of Melville but will soon take a senior role in the state government, having been named as the new director general of the Department of Planning & Infrastructure.
He said the report was commissioned to try and stimulate debate and bring forward reform.
"The current structure has serious problems," Mr Lumsden wrote in a foreword to the report.
"For example, there is a great risk that some local governments are not financially sustainable."
Mr Lumsden said the report does not represent LGMA policy but presents a vision of how the sector might look in the year 2027.
The report was written by four retired local government chief executives: Lindsay Delahunty, Trevor Harken, Jim Kelly and Max Williams.
Their recommendations include:
- cutting the number of councils in WA from 142 to 30;
- cutting the number of metropolitan councils from 30 to 13;
- cutting the number of rural councils from 112 to 17.
Each council would have seven elected councillors, which means the total number of elected members across the state would be cut from 1,305 to 210.
The report proposed that the 17 district councils outside of Perth would have substantially inceased financial resources. They would directly receive financial assistance grants and take over the fucntions of regional development commissions.
It noted that "many rural towns rely on the activities of local government and government agencies to maintain population levels.The model recognises this vital contribution to the economic viability of towns."
Hence, it recommends that existing local councils could elect to continue as "community councils" which would have an advisory role.
The report noted that a range of reviews and inquiries have been conducted over the past 40 years and "all recommended major change".
In recent years, the Local Government Advisory Board recommended a series of local council mergers. In practice, mergers have occured only in Geraldton and Northam.
WALGA is proceeding with its Systemic Sustainability Study, which will culminate in the release later this year of a white paper presenting a range of options.
WALGA state president Bill Mitchell described the LGMA paper as "an interesting contribution to the debate".
"Its a very raw paper and overly simplistic since its based only on population and not catchments of areas of interest," Cr Mitchell said.
"It will get people talking"
.
