The past two years have been challenging for New South Wales Councils, not least being the continued impact of and response to emergency events, including bushfires, floods and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Councils provide a range of services and infrastructure for a geographical area. Services include waste collection, planning, child and family day care, and recreational services. Councils also build and maintain infrastructure, including roads, footpaths and drains, and enforce various laws. While core functions such as waste collection are similar across councils, the range of services each council provides can vary depending on the needs of each community.
The Sustainability of each council can also vary and be impacted by emergencies, size, population and geographic diversity.
CT Management Group has a Sustainable Council Program (SCP) which is designed to assist and provide Councils a way forward to a sustainable future understanding and meeting community needs and the challenges.
The Program starts with a detailed analytical view of today’s service offering and costs, including a profile of services and required capital investments, through to an agreed action plan for a sustainable future. The program provides the methodology and tools to guide affordable comparative choices between services and rationalisation where required to achieve sustainability.
With a thorough understanding of Council’s sustainability and future options, the SCP enables Council to engage the community with levels and range of services that the community wants and what the community is prepared to pay for?
CT Management Group’s Sustainable Council Program:
- Assists Councils to deliver sustainable services, aligned to community needs.
- Invest in capital programs that aligns to Council’s vision and sustainable service delivery.
- Establishes the agenda for community consultation.
- Facilitates Council’s capacity to make informed comparative choices between competing service demands based on community priorities.
- Provides for a review of the governance frameworks around service, asset and financial management.
- Provides a detailed assessment and forward plan to ensure the financial sustainability of ongoing service delivery and capital investment.
- Identifies and addresses any existing known compliance issues reported from the Office of the Auditor General.
The four elements of the Sustainable Council Program are:
- Service Planning
- Asset Management
- Data and Information
- Financial Planning & Sustainability
These elements and their relationship are detailed in Figure 1.
These are the pillars of a sustainable municipality and the foundations upon which sound community consultation can be built.
The Program can be offered in total or alternatively via separate elements or alternatively as a total program over a 9 to 12-month period.
We can assist you with your Review!
CT Management Group has extensive experience in working with Councils to achieve good governance controls and financial sustainability in todays’ local government environment where available revenues must be maximised by a greater emphasis on good data and diligent asset management.
The Sustainable Council Program can be provided through the following Local Buy Panels to assist with procurement if required:
- BUS 272 Business, Finance and Organisational Management Services
- Bus 280 Asset Management Services
- Bus 279 Project Management Services (Civil Infrastructure)
CT Management Group has over 90 experienced Associates the majority of whom have local government executive level experience available to assist Councils improve services and systems.
For more information, visit our website Sustainable Council Program. To discuss how we can help you with the Sustainable Council Program please contact Jarrod Bryant, Regional Manager (NSW/QLD) on 1300 500 932 or submit the form below.