At the recent Local Government Managers Australia National Congress in Sydney, FOCUS invited delegates to nominate individuals and teams from their Council who are excelling in their field and promoting the organisation’s corporate goals. In this edition we begin to showcase the winners of the competition.
Individual Winner – Yvonne Perkins, Community Safety Officer, Penrith City Council, New South Wales
Yvonne Perkins came to Penrith City Council in January 2000 as Community Safety Officer, and has to date achieved a significant amount in regards to Council’s Community Safety Plan. With a background in Community Development including a Diploma in Community Organisations, Yvonne first worked in the field as a Community Development Worker at the Erskine Park Community Centre in Penrith.
“This role provided me with a range of skills that assist with my current role in consultation, networking and strategy development,” she said. “Community safety is a relatively new role for Local Government.
“The position was largely unscoped when I first started but it has been a very hectic and exciting time as community safety has continued to become a key function of Council. My job functions include liaising with the community to identify some safety issues and then to propose strategies that would address those issues.”
Another important role is the establishment and resourcing of the Penrith Valley Community Safety Partnership. This partnership group comprises representatives from local authorities, youth and health groups, transport and community groups across the area.
“I enjoy opportunities to work in the field at the request of the residents who may have safety concerns about some aspects of public space,” Yvonne Perkins said. “I have worked with other partners to conduct a community safety assessment of a stadium during a major rugby league match, walked through open drains, assessed the safety of a golf course tee, and measured the effectiveness of lightning at local car parks. Definitely not tasks I’ve had in any other job.”
However it is also the chance to inform her peers about community safety that Yvonne has achieved great satisfaction in her work.
“One of the most satisfying aspects of my role has been the opportunity to develop internal partnerships, promoting the concept of community safety across all functions of Council and encouraging my peers to become ‘eyes on the streets’, promoting the concept of ownership and responsibility for the whole Local Government area.”
NOMINATOR
Gary Dean, Facilities Operations Manager at Penrith City Council, nominated Yvonne Perkins, Community Safety Officer, for her achievements in raising safety awareness in the community and developing partnerships with stakeholders, regarding Council’s Community Safety Plan Located on the western fringe of the Sydney metropolitan area, and approximately 54 kilometres west of Sydney, Council services a population of around 168,000.
“The position of Community Safety Officer was introduced by Council two years ago,” Gary Dean said. “Prior to its inception, Penrith City Council had very little knowledge of the ins and outs of community safety planning.Yvonne came from a community safety planning background and brought to Council a finer understanding of community safety education, and safety in building and design, as well as raising Council’s profile by involving the community in the program.”
Yvonne has been able to form strategic partnerships with the key stakeholders, thereby assisting with the facilitation of initiatives that are part of the Community Safety Plan. In addition, Yvonne has sought to involve other staff in the plan.
“She has trained other staff on the issues of community safety and has encouraged the development of a community safety control plan,” said Gary Dean. “She has also informed developers with the issue of safety, in regards to applications.”
Not only has she raised the awareness of community safety on a local level, but she has also captured the State Government’s attention.
“Yvonne has gained recognition of the city wide Community Safety Plan at the State level, along with the Attorney-General’s Department providing a $50,000 grant,” Gary Dean said. “I have the greatest professional respect for her. She has gained the respect and participation of others. She has given a higher status to community safety with others starting to think more about this issue. Her work is acknowledged informally and formally by Council, and we recognise the value that she brings to the organisation.”
Team Winner – Development Services Team, Town of Claremont, Western Australia
Nick Boegl, Director of the Development Services at the Town of Claremont in Western Australia is proud of the achievements of his staff.
The Town of Claremont is the Local Government authority for the beautiful, leafy riverside suburbs of Claremont and Swanbourne near Perth. It services a population of around 9,447 people.
The Development Services Team comprises 10 staff members responsible for health, planning, heritage, building, and animal control, with consultants being brought in occasionally for specific projects. One of the main achievements of this Team, for which Nick Boegl has been exceptionally proud, is the establishment of a set of positive ground rules, to facilitate their fulfilment of Council’s strategic plan values.
Claremont’s Chief Executive Officer, Arthur Kyron, had introduced a strategy for understanding Council’s culture of customer service, with Steve Simpson’s book ‘Cracking the Corporate Culture Code’, presented to Council Directors as inspiration.
The Development Services Team met to determine the negative and positive unwritten ground rules that governed the staff culture relative to customer service, that is, those rules that everyone had always practised and abided by, but had never been written in some tangible form.
“It was more of a self realisation exercise in which we discussed values of customer service that we had always thought but had never given much attention to,” Nick Boegl said. “This gave us an opportunity to work out a consistency on agreed and unified positive and negative values.”
The Team took Council’s corporate values and developed some positive and negative ground rules relating to each value. This has resulted in a number of positive outcomes.
“The staff have looked at themselves and how they operate, as a self assessment on how they themselves work,” said Nick Boegl.“It is important for staff to put the corporate values in context, and to examine closely how they are aligning themselves to that. It’s about how you are achieving your tasks and the obstacles that can alter the achievement of the corporate values.”The Development Services Team provide snappy service and are always willing to perform any task, albeit their regular duties . They have the right attitude.”
As part of the Development Services Team, Vicki Lummer is Manager Planning Services. She joined Council this year.
“The Town of Claremont has a cohesive and close knit Development Services Team,” said Vicki Lummer. “The team members are supportive and helpful, and readily welcomed me when I joined Council.”
With the establishment of the unwritten ground rules, Vicki believes that it has helped her with some of the pressures that come with her work.
“The unwritten ground rules have helped me rationalise the pressure that we work under at the Town of Claremont, by acknowledging some of the harder aspects to deal with, such as the customers who may never be satisfied, no matter how hard you try to provide good customer service,” she said. “The unwritten ground rules relating to accomplishments, sharing problems and solutions, have helped me to cut down on duplicating work that has already been undertaken by other members of the Team.”
And how has this helped the Team grow?
“Again, the sharing of work load and information makes for a strong and healthy team. We celebrate our achievements and learn from our mistakes together,” Vicki said. “The whole concept of ‘unwritten ground rules’ relates to how things are done around the office or organisation. It has been excellent as a new team member to have these so called ‘unwritten’ rules written down. It has helped me to fit in with what is good about the way things are done and recognise areas that require changes or improvements.”
