At the 2005 Local Government Managers Australia National Congress in Canberra, FOCUS invited delegates to nominate an individual or team from their Council who is improving their Council’s operations and meeting community needs. In this edition, we showcase two more of our competition winners for 2005.
Richard Muir Wilson, Community Development Officer, Waratah Wynyard Council, Tasmania
Waratah Wynyard, the heart of Tasmania’s beautiful north west, includes the coastal towns and villages of Wynyard, Somerset, Boat Harbour and Sisters Beach, the rural town of Yolla and the former mining towns of Waratah and Corinna. Covering an area of 3,330 square kilometres, Waratah Wynyard boasts a vast landscape including a spectacular display of tulips, costal beaches, foreshores, farmland and rainforests. The town has an urban and rural mix with half the population of 14,000 people living in the country and the other half in townships.
Richard Muir Wilson has worked at Waratah Wynyard Council as a Community Development Officer for 11 years. With prior TAFE training in teaching, journalism and environmental sciences, he said he enjoys the position because he gets to meet a lot of new people and there are a range of different duties to keep it interesting.
“Projects have a lifetime,” he said. “So there is always something different to get involved in.”
Richard’s position as a Community Development Officer makes him the primary contact with the community. He is involved in various community initiatives such as safety and sourcing community grants. He also takes care of the day to day management of sports centres and looks after tourism development. The most recent project Richard has overseen is the Community Door project. This aims to support young people participating in the management of any community group.
Nominated by Councillor Alwyn Friedersdorff, she said Richard works tirelessly in a professional and totally committed manner.
“Never once have I heard a complaint or negative comment from him,” she said. “He works many extra volunteer hours to enhance and enrich community capacity and cultural development.” Councillor Friedersdorff said Richard always gives 150 per cent in his work.
“He recently secured a temporary public art display on recycling at Tasmania’s biennial public arts and cultural celebration, Ten days on the Island,” she said. “Richard constructed a piece called, Clatter, which was made up of Coke bottles and bamboo sticks in his own time.”
Richard believes the key challenge to his role is working with a diversity of groups and ensuring that they all get a fair go.
“We need to ascertain whether the group is going through a growth phase, maintenance phase or if it is in decline,” he said. “We can then address the issues associated with this phase. For example we manage the funds for local group, Women of the World, which is in a maintenance phase. This then takes a lot of pressure off them.”
He said the key factor for becoming a successful Community Development Officer is knowing how to pace yourself.
“There is a tendency to take on too much,” he said. “Because the job is so diversified and interesting you tend to get caught up in it. You need to realise there are only a certain amount of hours in a week.”
Richard Muir Wilson believes that the main issue facing Council at present is an ageing population.
“While it is holding steady, the average age increases with every census,” he said. “Although we will not feel the direct impacts for five or ten years, this will ultimately effect participation in the workforce and Council needs to address it now,” he said.
“We have approved generous amounts of subdivisions to make plenty of room for new people to move to the area. We are also working closely with industries to create new jobs. For example we recently relocated a wind turbine from Denmark attracting 80 new jobs to the area.
Richard sees the biggest issue facing local Government as being cost shifting.
“There seems to be an expectation that Local Government will do more,” he said. “But the capacity is limited when resources don’t rise at the same rate.”
Currently Richard is looking at a report to set up a prospecting and mining hall of fame at Waratah.
Planning and Development Services Division, Shire of Capel, Western Australia
Located 212 kilometres south of Perth, the Shire of Capel has a refreshing blend of rural countryside, rolling hills and wide open spaces, covering an area of 554 square kilometres. The area encompasses popular beaches, rich jarrah forests and the magnificent Tuart Forest, the only naturally occurring tuart forest in the world.
Since 2000, the population of Capel has grown from 6,610 to 9,825, a 48 per cent increase in five years. This has been associated with a rapid increase in development applications, building licenses, subdivisions and rezoning of land to facilitate urban development. As a result, Capel’s Planning and Development Services Division has experienced a significant increase in its workload. As a small Council, dealing with such growth was a serious challenge.
CEO of Capel Shire, Paul Sheedy, nominated the Planning and Development Services Division to appear in FOCUS because they have continued to implement improvement practices and focus on customer service during this growth period.
“The team has demonstrated an excellent ability to quickly and efficiently process building and development approvals,” he said. “They have also implemented new procedures for planning and building services that have addressed our growth issue accordingly.”
Manager of Planning and Development Services, Glen Bishop, said that the growth in activity has been accommodated through three main areas: strategic planning – both land use and organisational, team work and continuous review and improvement.
“The Division was formed in the mid 1990s with a particular emphasis on setting up procedures that would assist in providing customer focused processing of applications,” Glen Bishop said. “Much effort was put into creating information sheets for applicants, streamlining administrative processes and working with regular applicants, particularly project home builders, to ensure that complete and competent applications were submitted.
“This has enabled the division to deal with an increase in dwelling permits from 149 in 1999/2000 to 350 in 2004/2005. Total permits for all types of buildings has increased from 384 to 826 in the same period.”
Glen Bishop said that over the years Council has also begun to delegate more decision making power to staff to implement policy and statutory regulations.
“This required a new Town Planning Scheme with appropriate authority to delegate decisions and to formally adopt Planning Policies,” he said. “This in turn required updates of existing, and creation of some new Planning Policies, along with formal decisions to delegate a range of planning assessment decisions.”
Glen Bishop said the involvement and attitude of the Planning and Development Services staff was critical to achieving these changes.
“The Shire was very fortunate to have a team with extensive experience and good commitment to customer service,” he said. “The team is small enough that everyone felt able to communicate their views and prepared to assist each other as the need arose. The maintenance of a positive attitude, even in the face of increasing workloads, was essential, and the small teamwork atmosphere where everyone could feel part of achieving successful change supported this.”
Glen Bishop said that commitment to continuous review and improvement remains an important issue.
“Information sheets, policies, procedures and delegations are open to review on an as needed basis,” he said. “Staff are encouraged to put forward opportunities for improvement as they arise so that they can be openly discussed and acted on where appropriate.”
