Weekly column from Council Courier e-newsletter by CEO Greg Hallam, Thursday 24 March 2016.
Here we go again. Another term of local government starts, well at least after Easter when the declaration of the polls has occurred and the crop of 2016 is sworn in.
Congratulations to the winners and commiserations to the losers, and our thoughts are with those of you who still don't know the outcome. It’s a long wait.
The Electoral Commission of Queensland’s performance has not escaped our attention, and we’ll have lots of election analysis next edition when the counting is complete.
The 2016-2020 term is all about the Big Three - Our Business, Our People, Our Story - and Better Councils Better Communities.
Expect to hear about the Big Three from the LGAQ over and over again during the next four years.
It’s a simple but truthful mantra that certainly resonates.
Focus on Our Business, Our People, Our Story and we will produce Better Councils and Better Communities. It encapsulates what mayors, councillors and council staff have been telling us the past few years in all of our quantitative and qualitative research. And our community attitude polling, which we have done every two years since 1997, reinforces those themes. It’s the local government narrative for the balance of the decade.
Our business: The work that goes into maintaining our community’s wealth, its public assets, and improving the way our communities live, work and play is what councils admit is their biggest issue.
Infrastructure is expensive to build and maintain and delivering quality service costs more each year.
With $108 billion of assets under council care, $2 billion a year being spent on renewing those assets and almost $9 billion spent on services, these need to be a priority areas for your council.
Our people: Councils and their staff – 39,000 people working in 245 professions – must now decide how best they can work to deliver for the community. A well-trained, well-resourced, responsive and cost-effective team of people is what makes for success. That means councils must commit to training, workforce planning and improved productivity. Given this and the emerging challenges of an ageing workforce, the time to act is now.
Our story: This is the biggest of the Big Three. Achieving all of the above will not matter if it fails to give the community direction and confidence.
Councils are the level of government closest to the community. They deliver many of the daily services and infrastructure on which the community relies. The need to tell that story in a compelling way has never been greater.
As it has been for previous eras of local government, doing over the next four years what previous councils did for the previous term won't cut the mustard. The agenda moves forward or, to borrow a now hackneyed phrase just days after the Prime Minister uttered it, government is about continuity with change.
The Big Three is the agenda till the end of this decade. It’s our 2020 Vision and if you and your council are ready to embrace it the LGAQ is ready and willing to assist in delivering it.
Here's to a rewarding and productive next four years. Better Councils do produce Better Communities.