The City of Melville has been recognised at a special event held by the Institute of Public Administration Australia (WA), receiving three coveted awards for best practice in the areas of Health and Wellbeing, Corporate Social Values and Local Government Leadership.
City of Melville Mayor Russell Aubrey acknowledged it was rewarding the City had been recognised for its innovation and continued effort to achieve best practice in services provided to the community.
“Our main priority is to look after our residents and to strengthen our communities.”
The City of Melville’s Lifewise Resource Project, created to assist young people navigate the challenges of adolescence was awarded for Best Practice for Health and Wellbeing.
Developed in consultation with young people, the suite of four cutting edge educational resources aims to raise awareness of the devastating consequences of poor decision making and unhealthy risk taking behavior, in particular relating to alcohol and drug use, suicide and negative social behaviour.
Judges commended the City for not just creating resources for young people about important health issues, but also for communicating in a way that ‘speaks’ to them in their own language.
Project Robin Hood, a participatory budgetary model that hands decision making directly back to the community, was awarded for Best Practice in Corporate Social Values.
The City’s Youth Advisory Council led the project with support from the City’s Neighbourhood Development team.
The project attracted half a million dollars’ worth of applications, more than 50 project ideas, 1,379 voters, and 674 comments, resulting in the community selecting 12 projects to allocate the $100,000, some which have now been completed.
Also reflective of the organisation’s achievements, the City of Melville’s Chief Executive Officer Dr Shayne Silcox, was awarded the Corruption and Crime Commission Award – Leader of the Year Working in Local Government.
With a career spanning over 40 years across the private sector, State and Local Government, Dr Silcox has held the position of Chief Executive Officer at the City of Melville since 2008.
During this time Dr Silcox’s leadership has been instrumental in the development of strong vision and direction for the City and this has been translated through a collaborative and inclusive Strategic and Business planning process.
A strong advocate of local government delivering high levels of customer service, under Dr Silcox’s leadership the City of Melville has achieved accreditation to the International Customer Service Standards and is widely recognised as the leading Local Government in Australia in customer service through the attainment of the Customer Service Institute of Australia (CSIA) National Award for Local Government in 2011.
