An interview with Jane Frawley Manager Community Services Logan City Council
Jane is President of Queensland Community Services Association, Queensland Social Planning Chapter Convenor for Planning Institute of Australia and Interim PIA National Convenor of Social Planning Chapter.
Q: What opportunities can be embraced by Local Government in the community service field?
Community Services need to ensure that our business is relevant and readily understood by all and is seen as essential to the role of Local Government.
There is so much more to our cities and towns than just the roads network, or annual rates bill and local transfer and waste station or bin collection cycle. Ask any community member what makes there place special and worth visiting or living in and they won’t talk you about the local roads, rates or rubbish – instead they might tell you about the great local facilities for sports and recreation, local sights to see and things to do or groups you can join. This is the stuff of community services.
At Logan City Council we are changing the way we look at and deliver our community services, we are reviewing the way we deliver leases and support for sports organisations to our community. Every asset is valuable to our community and we need to make sure our leasing policies, club development and capacity building services deliver community facilities that are sustainable, maintained, well utilised and house groups or sports clubs that are active and meaningfully engaged with their local communities. We want our facilities to be hubs of activities for the community.
Now more than ever we are partnering with organisations to help access any funding sources that are available and at Logan City Council we provide totally free professional grant writers to any interested groups.
We also use our Energise Program to deliver personalised services to community groups and sports club organisation.
Rather than sit in the office and run courses annually on topics that we think are important we have reversed this instead giving the clubs and organisations a chance to have tailor made training and development, just for them and their volunteers in any topic important to their business.
Q. Where do you see Local Government management going in the next 20 years?
The business of Local Government and community services will change to keep pace with growth – the industry will need to focus on attracting skilled employees able to cope with change and be equipped with the a positive customer services focused attitude. At Logan City Council our values based culture helps ensure that we all stay focused on delivering excellent customer services and that we are ready to meet the challenges ahead.
Q. What do you see as the next big thing?
For community services teams in Local Government, it is going to be all about collaboration and innovation. To create new ways of doing business we are going to need to partner with non government organisations, private entities, other levels of government and community or sporting groups.
We must continue to deliver new types of community services that meet needs, address social issues, generate revenue, empower our communities, and keep the community services sector real and relevant to Local Government.
