A small rural shire is as rich in innovation, motivation and enthusiasm in response to change, as it is poor in financial and staff resources. Thus its response to change, and particularly the Victorian Government’s requirement of Best Value investigations, has been innovative and dynamic.
Strathbogie Shire, in partnership with CT Management Group, has applied what is sometimes seen as a cumbersome approach to the best value legislative requirements and achieved outstanding results.
Council and CT Management used template business plans to achieve the goals set down by the Victorian Government in putting each municipal service under the microscope. Local accountability, whole of organisation response, consultation on performance, benefits to service and financial resources and encouraging innovation are all part of the state government aim in introducing best value.
Strathbogie Shire Chief Executive Officer, Kevin Hannagan, said the template business plans were the catalyst for maintaining staff enthusiasm and awareness while delivering a quality service program.
“In responding to the best value legislation we have been able to develop a framework for our staff to achieve best value compliance,’’ Kevin Hannagan said. “It is an approach that targets the fundamental principles of best value – quality and cost, organisation wide responsiveness to community needs, accessibility, performance and continuous improvement.
“The basic steps outlined within each service area’s business plan provide clear directions and accountabilities of the service provision by staff and community. The template ensured a uniform approach to business plan presentation while, at the same time, enabling all frameworks for each service area to be consistent while addressing specific idiosyncrasies of each area.’’
CT Management’s Neville McPherson said the business plans enabled staff to recognise that the business plan provided the documentation of ‘Why we do it’ and ‘How we do it’ when meeting the community’s expectations of a quality service.
“The business plans were structured to clarify the management and planning requirement that ensured the services met the clients’ needs, and also documented the service levels key performance indicators within a measured cost structure.’’
The business plan template enabled electronic examples to be sourced by click and view to provide Strathbogie Shire staff with guidance on typical wording and intent of each section. This has eliminated the ‘reinventing the wheel’ syndrome and the need to come up with new ideas or words for areas that were corporately common.
For further information contact Neville McPherson on (03) 5795 2010.
