The NSW State Government has released its action plan to get the state’s 152 local councils ‘fit for the future’, which in the case of Glen Innes Severn Council (GISC) means remaining independent but cooperating with neighbouring councils in a New England joint organisation.
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GISC mayor Colin Price said even local government minister Peter Tools commented on the fact that of the 62 recommendations coming out of the state’s three-year independent review of local government, only four were about amalgamation although it attracted the greatest attention.
Apart from the early days of the review when an amalgamation of the Tenterfield and Glen Innes Severn Councils was looked at, Cr Price said it was never a serious consideration although council remains open-minded on any restructuring proposal.
“We were reasonably confident that we could make a case to remain a stand-alone, viable council, given the tough decisions we’ve already made,” he said.
“But we haven’t got a closed mind on the concept of amalgamation if there were big enough inducements, but I can’t see any benefit to it at this time.”
Cr Price said advantages may instead come for some adjustment of council boundaries as neighbouring councils tackle amalgamation proposals, such as Guyra amalgamating with Armidale Dumaresq and Walcha with Uralla, or maybe even a super council embracing all four.
Cr Price said a district like Ben Lomond, currently in the Guyra local government area, might feel more affinity to Glen Innes than to Armidale.
GISC general manager Hein Basson said the council is not interested in any type of predatorial approach to consuming neighbouring areas. Any realignment of council boundaries would be by mutual agreement.
He was not too surprised that amalgamation is not proposed for Glen Innes Severn, saying that it is not the panacea to resolve all problems.
“There might be distinct benefits for small centres to amalgamate or for a small council on the edge of a large one to combine, but there’s little to gain from merging Glen Innes Severn and Tenterfield,” he said.
Cr Price said the review was not about amalgamation but rather making the whole local government industry work better, in order to be sustainable.
In fact the report includes GISC in a group of 14 councils with projected 2031 populations between 5000 and 10,000 that may well be able to continue as stand-alone entities for several decades to come, although it recommends that these councils consider whether a merger could improve their sustainability and build strategic capacity.
The state government instead proposes that GISC cooperate with Tenterfield, Inverell, Guyra, Uralla, Armidale Dumaresq and Walcha in a so-called New England joint organisation (JO). These JOs are seen to not only enhance the role of councils but to facilitate more productive arrangements for strategic planning, economic development, infrastructure provision and service delivery.
JOs would be proclaimed entities with mandatory membership and ongoing active participation by member councils, with their own staffing, functions, governance and financial arrangements (including payment of any ‘dividends’ to participating councils.) Each will be required to prepare a 10-year strategic plan and four-year delivery plan, to guide but not restrict operations.
Both Cr Price and Mr Basson consider the JO concept great in theory, but possibly not so much in practice, with a good state-wide procurement system already in place, for instance, and resource-sharing presenting some challenges in the real world.
And while one concept of the JO structure is to share expertise across the region, Cr Price said that while GISC was a centre of expertise in a number of areas, there was no local redundancy that would free up these experts to assist other councils.
Mr Basson instead sees the advantage of a JO in streamlining the communication channels with state government, delivering regional feedback on wider issues such as skills shortages from the grass roots level and feeding them up into regional and state plans, rather than having these plans devised at the top and then filter down.
It seems that state government intends to use JOs are the primary liaison bodies rather than having to deal with 152 councils of disparate size. While there are obvious efficiency gains, there are fears that these JOs represent another level of government, and that with executive officers and administration staff and office space they will need several hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to operate.
Each JO will receive $300,000 from the state government as seed money, and from there will be funded by grants and by member councils.
“With the money coming from member councils we’ll want to keep the costs as low as possible, but it has to be a functioning body,” Mr Basson said.
Both the Fit for the Future initiative and Mr Basson and Cr Price acknowledge the importance of having a regional centre with the capacity to provide strong support to its smaller neighbours, but there is some concern as to whether Armidale Dumaresq Council is up to the challenge of filling that role for the New England JO.
Cr Price said local councils are already thinking on a regional level, with GISC and its neighbours supporting the developing of the Armidale Airport and the Armidale Hospital.
“Effectively they’re our airport and our referral hospital and all councils acknowledge that, but both Inverell and we still want our new district hospitals, to sit in between the MPUs (Multipurpose Units) and the referral hospital.”
Mr Basson and Cr Price see the new England JO more as structured cooperation, extending the inter-council networks already in place.
In fact Mr Basson and Cr Price see the state government’s promise to reduce paperwork as one of the most attracting components of the Fit for the Future initiative, although they don’t yet know what the new reporting framework will look like and if GISC would be classed as a rural council, with a more streamlined reporting process again.
“The biggest problem (of local councils) is over-regulation,” Mr Basson said.
“It chews up a lot of resources.”
Cr Price agreed.
“Our most talented staff spend their days writing reports that go to state government and sit on shelves with nobody reading them.”
He said he’s waiting for the day when council is told it doesn’t have to submit a certain report this year, and then he’ll know that progress is being made.
While a New England JO is expected to be up and running by 2016, in the meantime councils are required to submit a sustainability report by June next year detailing their long-term financial plans, their plans for enhancing stainability, their effectiveness in the delivery of infrastructure and services, efficiency gains, and that they have sufficient scale to engage across community, industry and government.
Details of what is required in the report won’t be known until next month when a report template becomes available, but Cr Price said all the work done for the special rates variation application will serve as a good basis.
Cr Price and Mr Basson will join with counterparts from the other New England JO councils at a Fit for the Future workshop in Armidale next Monday, September 22, to have the reform package thoroughly explained. State member for Northern Tablelands Adam Marshall said councils will have access to a range of initiatives to help them become fit for the future, including access to a state borrowing facility to fund local infrastructure; more flexibility with procurement and simplified reporting; access to a streamlined IPART process for setting rates; and eligibility for additional planning powers.
A Fit for the Future funding and support package also includes a $4 million innovation fund to assist small rural councils such as Glen Innes Severn (less than 10,000 population) to develop innovative ways of working.
Mr Basson said that some of the changes asked of local councils are needed and it’s important to look at the bigger picture of sustainability.
“Glen Innes Severn is in a good position, and it can only get better,” he said.
Change is hard, though, and Cr Price warned there are more tough decisions to come.