In Launceston there were Councillors who stood down, others that didn't cut it this time and five incumbents returned. Not to put too fine a point on it, for the most part 'being on Council' is a SIDEgig and depending upon personal circumstances quite a lucrative one.
The electorate pays way too little attention to the unelected 'executive management' most of whom are in receipt of what might be understood as obscene salaries compared with Federal and State politicians, senior academic posts and in the corporate sector. It turns out that in the most part Local Govt. 'officials' have been allowed to become a self-serving, self-important, self-assessing, self-accountable, cohort of functionaries who are in reality 'public servants'.
Yes these 'servants' might have experience and expertise but not by necessity. There is no standard qualification for a 'council officer' as is the case for say university appointments. Here the lack of a PhD will see a candidate kicked off just about any short list these days sight unseen – and for positions up and down the pay scale. In Local Govt. however, 'functionaries' can rise meteorically from nowhere – say Health Inspector, File Clerk, whatever – to some dizzy hight based on who would/could know. Shakespeare tells us that "a fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool". If only managerial functionaries were better versed in, and payed closer attention to, 'The Bard's ' innate wisdom. Mouthing the words is never enough and any fool can make a rule while only a fool will adhere to it.
Down at, 0r is it up at, Launceston's Town Hall there is a document that has been growing in scope and scale uninhibited. Essentially, it catalogues how 'elected representatives' have been seduced into disempowering themselves in deference to an unelected, unrepresentative and largely unaccountable 'managers and functionaries' who operate on the imperative to draw ever larger salary packages. This is where 'Parkinson's Law' kicks in with underlings needing underlings who in their turn need/want more underlings. And, the bureaucracy "grows like Topsy" – without planning or design. Launceston's current Register Of Delegated Authorities runs to 76 pages – about equal in number to the number of trombones in a "
If one was to have the tenacity – or indeed the temerity – to go and inspect this document with all its attendant bureaucratic HUMbug you'd be not too short of the mark to call out what you would be faced with as a 'bureaucratic SNOWjob'. It exists to terrify the public and arguably to befuddle the 'elected Councillors' in one foul swoop. In any event it turns out to be an exemplar of managerially driven bastardry when implemented at it worst.
All that said and acknowledged, there is some functional purposefulness in delegating the authority to perform various and largely administrative functions to 'the hired help' when and if they have the appropriate experience and skill sets. The ever attendant danger is that they are assumed, unverified or just not there.
After that, when and if 'governance functions' – policy determination plus strategic rationalisation and resolution – are devolved to 'management' any operation is ever likely to quickly fall into disarray and into a paradigm where transparency and accountability is discretionary at best.
It is clear that Councillors can be quickly persuaded that they lack the wherewithal to determine policy and the appropriate strategies for effective governance. If this is born out on the evidence the Councillors should not be there. If they do indeed have the skills and experience then 'management' oversteps the mark and is usurping the function and purpose of governance. If it is worse than that, in so much as 'the governors' devolve their 'authority' to a cohort of chancers in management in search of an 'easy life', that is inexcusable, unconscionable and unprincipled laziness.
With 76 pages setting out what authority Councillors have lost over time makes the City of Launceston'sRegister Of Delegated Authorities a somewhat contentious document and one that is arguably in serious need of regularisation. Conceivably attention to that task year ago would have been way too late!
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