Open & accountable Council

The management of public companies are required to report to their shareholders how the company has performed and what it has achieved. This includes bad decisions and poor outcomes that have direct impact on the organisations bottom line.

Council should be no different. The past culture of many Councils has been anything but full disclosure, with many failings, bad decisions and poor performance hidden within the detail of budget documents and glossy end of year reports which veil the true performance of the Council and its impact on its bottom line – future rate increases. This type of culture does not foster management excellence or accountability; in fact it fosters quite the contrary.

Organisations which disclose all of their performance results in an open and transparent manner usually perform to high standards and deliver good outcomes.

This is the type of organisation we need the new Fraser Coast Regional Council to become, shedding past practices and adopting a culture of transparency in decision making and performance outcomes.

If elected I would recommend to Council a number of initiatives to improve transparency and disclosure of Council activities and decision making. These initiatives are:-

• Full disclosure of Council business activities. If Council takes a business risk with the community’s money the community are entitled to know how it is performing and the return on investment to date. Examples will include Wide Bay Water, Airport Industrial Estate and Widelinx.
• Separate budget reports on projects, capital expenditure and service delivery outcomes which detail variances in costs and timeframes, and qualification of variations on service levels. Separation of these items allows both the Councillors and the community to see how the Council is performing and make decisions accordingly.
• A ‘Councillor Role and Responsibilities Policy’ that clearly states the duties and responsibilities of Councillors that reflects the remuneration decided by the Council.

Fairness and equity

One of the biggest challenges for the new regional Council will be to balance debt and expenditure fairly and equitably over all ratepayers without unfairly raising the rates in areas outside of the central Hervey Bay area.

As Hervey Bay is experiencing rapid development and has the largest and fastest growing population, it also has the greatest demand for infrastructure. Couple this fact with a current debt of 66 million and a shortfall in capital expenditure on the current 10 year plan of some 20 million dollars, highlights the new Council will need to be very mindful that Hervey Bay doesn’t become the centre of all spending for the immediate future and lift rates across the entire region to finance a Hervey Bay first approach.

To ensure Council practices fairness and equity for all ratepayers at all times I propose the following initiatives:-

• The development of a ‘Spending Disclosure Policy’ which clearly articulates where Council spends, and plans to spend its money, in the various areas of the region, showing the actual monies spent, or to be spent, against the rate dollar collected.
• Development of an ‘Equity Policy’ that ensures the 10 year plan reflects equitable spending across the entire region within any four year term of the Council. Although Councils forward plan over 10 year periods, it is possible for Council to favour one area over another based on priorities, which can push spending in some areas well into the future. If each successive Council keep pushing projects further and further into the future, some areas miss out altogether, even though in theory Council is perusing a policy of equity in spending. Ensuring monies spent in any one term of Council is distributed equitably across the entire region will ensure no area gets left behind or is unfairly disadvantaged.
• The first four budgets of the first Council term will reflect the above policy initiatives.

This level of transparency and disclosure is innovative and by its nature empowers the community to monitor how Council is performing and assess whether Council is treating all ratepayers fairly.