A review of the state's local government sector will hone in on council financial sustainability, workforce gaps, consolidated service delivery and workplace culture as it enters its second stage. [What about accountability and transparency?]
The Local Government Board on Thursday released its interim report on the board-based review and called for community input on six priority areas.
The board will consider options for improving elected member culture and capability with a mind to preserve and enhance local representation. [What about curtailing General Managers powers and disallowing their incursions into policy development in camera?]
Councillor numbers and administrative boundaries will also be considered. [What about replacing the Elected Representational Democracy model with the Direct Democracy model of ‘governance’ backed by strong accountability mechanisms ?]
The board will investigate the extent to which some communities are paying more for services due to insufficient economies of scale and consider consolidated service delivery models for expensive, capital intensive, though regionally important, council services. [What about appointing expert COMMISSIONS & COMMISSIONERS to do this work?]
It will seek to understand current professional and organisational capability, including skills gaps and shortages across councils. [What about appointing limited term qualified expert COMMISSIONS & COMMISSIONERS as policy determiners and operation monitors?]
Current and projected financial position of Tasmanian councils, including their future asset renewal, will be detailed. Amalgamations as part of local government reform were deliberately avoided during the first stage of the review. [Replace Councils & Councillors with COMMISSIONS & COMMISSIONERS as it would be cost effective and depending upon those APPOINTED and their accountability this would ‘strategically’ place Local Govt. in a stronger position financially and skillswise. That status quo is clearly unsustainable.]
The Local Government Board in its interim report said such discussion tended to imply a blunt and simplistic approach to reform. [The current Act circa 1993, quite bluntly is well past its use by date]
"The future design options we are interested in could result in significant changes not only to administrative boundaries, but also to the fundamental role councils play and the functions and services they deliver," it said. [The Board must not shrink from fundamental and significant change albeit with strong accountability mechanisms in short timeframes in order that 21st C governance can be delivered.]
Local Government Board chairwoman Sue Smith said the board had heard strong support from the community during consultation on local government's role in service delivery and representation. [Likewise, it seems that the Board is ‘cherry picking’ what it pays attention to and what it dismisses ‘in camera’.]
"We've also heard that people believe that local government is struggling to fulfill all its responsibilities, particularly the smaller councils," she said. [Larger councils while collecting more revenue ‘struggle’ to be accountable and leave constituents without mechanisms to address inequities via meaningful community consultation.]
"People have told us that councils need to be big enough to be sustainable, but small enough to genuinely represent their community." [Rather than the ‘scale’ of a Council being ‘the issue’ it is councillors’ capacity to understand, represent and respond to constituent’s needs and aspirations that is the issue.]
Local Government Minister Nic Street said the review would help build community confidence in local councils. [Community confidence in local governance comes with expedient and meaningful accountability. No amount of ‘window dressing’ will deliver community confidence!]
"We want to ensure that councils have the professional skills and resources they need to be able to serve their communities sustainably over the long term," he said. [Expert COMMISSIONS & COMMISSIONERS as policy determiners in a Direct Democracy model can deliver on that aspiration]
Labor's local government spokewoman Anita Dow said the interim report amounted to another glossy brochure. [Someone had to say this, but it was ever likely to be thus! In America this is called a SNOW JOB!]
"Instead of delivering yet another interim report on their promises of reform, the government needs to come clean on what they are specifically planning for their promised overhaul of councils across Tasmania," she said. [Clearly, what the Board has in mind is the redundant Tasmanian Local Govt. Act 1993 with patches and band aids. Why? The status quo serves too many too well.]
The public can make submissions to the interim report until August 25. [Too much is at risk NOT to make a submission BUT be aware you are unlikely to get an acknowledgement or a commitment to consider your submission … CLICK HERE FOR ONE THAT HAS BEEN SUBMITTED WITHOUT ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
No comments:
Post a Comment