| Challenge |
Opportunity |
| Asset renewal gap is widening |
Focus on service innovation to drive use of council revenue further and increase funding available to asset renewal |
| Community engagement is costly and resource hungry |
Consider use of existing community forums to engage, focus groups. Target the silent majority rather than the vocal minority |
| Community reaction to any service standards reduction |
Face to face engagement with community using visual aids to demonstrate impact of new standards |
| Community will oppose service cuts or service standard reductions |
Community engagement to share options & cost implications and get feedback |
| Cost of staff and office accommodation |
Review workplace flexibility and work location choices (e.g. work from home) |
| Cost shifting by State Government (e.g. fire levy) |
Push back unless cost neutrality for councils guaranteed |
| Council legislated obligations for local roads/lanes |
Review local road hierarchy and road closures and sell closed road reservations |
| Councils get blamed for service authority & State Government defects |
Place markers at site of defects naming responsible authority and giving telephone number |
| Councils operate non-profitable businesses |
Rationalise businesses that incur operating losses (e.g. art galleries) |
| Cr knowledge of asset management & renewal gap |
Cr training & demonstrate evidence of renewal gap (e.g. MAV Step program audits & data from JRA) |
| EBA negotiated outcomes >CPI |
Future negotiations must seek to ‘cap’ EBA increases at CPI or State Government capped index |
| Environmental control impacts on maintenance budgets |
Review controls to simplify maintenance tasks & reduce costs (e.g. disposal of grading scrapings to landfill rather adjacent property) |
| Fleet management costs |
Review management assumptions, changeover timing, vehicle selection, private use and own Vs hire |
| Growth in internal governance costs |
Review internal charging |
| Impact of reduced road maintenance funding on RMPs |
Face to face community engagement on proposed amended intervention levels and response times. Compare ‘reasonableness’ of proposed amended standards within region |
| Infrastructure budgets traditionally easy target |
Councils must refocus on core activities & understand impact of maintenance under-spend on asset life (particularly roads) |
| Local Governments capacity to run leisure facilities profitably |
Review council’s community service obligation and facility standards, operating hours and costs (e.g. water authority fees have risen >>CPI) |
| Lack of availability of local materials |
State Government to fund pilot programs to develop non-standard substitute products (e.g. suppliers are increasing costs >CPI + cartage $) |
| Lack of community awareness of council services & expenditure |
Use existing council communication frameworks to share/educate the community on council’s roles and responsibilities |
| Lack of service cost comparisons |
Benchmark unit rates within region and across related industries ensuring comparison of ‘like with like’ |
| Landfill Levy increases set by State Government >CPI |
Request ESC to request State Government to cap levy increase to CPI |
| Long term impact of reduced infrastructure spend |
Engage with community and revise RMP on asset management and the renewal gap |
| Loss of staff/corporate capacity if service standards reduced |
Improved service specifications, contract management and auditing (service out-sourcing) |
| Many councils focus on new asset delivery |
Shift focus to asset management and asset renewal (culture shift required) |
| Reducing service standards to reduce costs |
Community engagement to share options & cost implications |
| Reducing service standards may require bigger costly e/ment |
Carefully analyse impact of service standards changes |
| Regional contracts -> local job losses |
Engage with rural communities to understand knock-on effects (social & local economy) |
| Regional employment losses |
Engage with rural communities to understand knock-on effects (social & local economy) |
| Regional job losses have greater impact than metro |
Seek to understand rural Vs metro impacts -> specify local job % in contract documents |
| Revenue loss impact on financial sustainability of rural councils |
Develop long term financial plans (10yrs min) to assess deficit budget impacts on key financial ratios and long term financial sustainability |
| Rural areas suffer from significantly higher material costs |
MAV to demonstrate cost differentials to State Government of most commonly used maintenance materials across regions |
| Service cost comparisons are often difficult to make |
Use benchmarking to identify significant cost differences and analyse the reasons to identify continuous improvement opportunities and undertake best value service reviews |
| Successful community engagement |
Development of community engagement models and tools for use across the State |
| Utility cost increases outside council control |
Request ESC to differentiate utility authority rates for local government & cap to CPI (eg water authority fees have risen >>CPI) |
| Utility costs growing >> CPI |
Councils to be granted access to CPI indexed utility rate increases |
| Workload on staff if staff numbers reduced |
Review costing shifting to local government and explore technology opportunities (eg State funded pilot programs) (eg rural councils still recovering from recent natural disaster events) |
