A five-point plan to help Councils best serve their communities into the future has been released by the WA Local Government Association.
A five-point plan to help Councils best serve their communities into the future has been released by the WA Local Government Association.
The final report of the Systemic Sustainability Study panel - In Your Hands: Shaping the future of Local Government in Western Australia - was presented to the Association's State Council meeting last night.
The study panel was chaired by Curtin University's Professor Greg Craven. Its report comes at a time when the state government is encouraging local councils to merge.
Commissioned by the WA Local Government Association, the report makes 41 recommendations to address issues identified earlier in the study process such as:
- 83 of the 144 Councils in WA are financially unsustainable from their current own source revenue.
- $1.75 billion is required to redress the backlog of infrastructure managed by Local Government.
Association President Cr Bill Mitchell said the Systemic Sustainability Study had been a timely insight for many Local Governments.
"The study process identified and quantified a good deal of challenges facing Local Government but it was not all bad news," Cr Mitchell said.
"The final report recognises that there is considerable innovation at an individual Council level and what is required is for the entire sector to benefit from these experiences."
The Panel's five point plan recommended:
- Long Term Change Leadership: The sector to engage in a longer term planning process that leverages the innovation occurring at some individual Councils so as to benefit all of Local Government and champion best practice in the sector.
- Secure Revenue Outcomes: Reform will require both considerable investment from State or Federal Government and improved rating mechanisms, asset costing and infrastructure analysis.
- Improved Finance and Planning: Long term financial, asset management and community infrastructure planning is required, including for many Councils a shift to accrual accounting and establishing renewal programs for assets.
- More Efficient Service Delivery: Local Government to investigate new service delivery models that recognise the change in social, demographic and economic factors by leveraging regional and zone synergies.
- Enhance the Human Resource: Increasing the competency base of Local Government by developing strategies to attract and retain more high quality employees along with investing in development of existing staff and Elected Members.
The Association has established a Task Force to facilitate the recommendations of the Panel. This Task Force will be establishing implementation plans for each of the recommendations prior to an industry summit.
