Future Directions is a regular feature. This month we interviewed Gary Bensley, Executive Manager, Corporate and Community Division, Hornsby Shire Council, New South Wales.
Gary Bensley has worked in Local Government for 29 years. He commenced with the NSW Department of Local Government in 1977, working in various roles prior to taking up a position with Hornsby Shire Council in 1990. His experience has included everything from travelling around New South Wales explaining to Councils how their grants were calculated, to being on the other side of the desk and working out how to spend that grant money and ask for more. In July 2005, Gary was appointed to his current position as Executive Manager, Corporate and Community Division. In this role, he is responsible for ensuring that the Division operates in an efficient and cost effective manner.
Gary Bensley believes an effective administrator is someone who:
- is good at prioritising competing tasks and can work under pressure
- is innovative and has regard to trends and developments in administration/governance/legislative matters throughout the industry
- is good at communicating with a broad range of customers
- can operate effectively in a political environment
- has strong analytical and research skills
- has a high attention to detail.
He said that providing the level of resources required to meet the increasing number of access to information applications, without the ability to charge a fee, has proven to be a problem.
“There will obviously be continuing pressure from State Governments for Local Government to prove its performance standards, particularly in the areas of governance, transparency of decision making and sustainability of services,” he said. “At the same time, Councils are being expected to provide more services without necessarily an increase in funding.
“The internet has increased expectations that access to information will be provided immediately and at no cost. This is putting constant pressure on Councils to increase our information storage and record keeping technology to keep up with the number and complexity of requests by the public to access information. It also has significant impact on staffing and resource allocation.”
In working towards meeting these expectations, Hornsby Council is implementing a development application (DA) tracking software system. This will allow residents to log in from home, check on what stage their DA is up to and also look at associated documentation. The system is expected to go live in the next few months.
Gary Bensley said through continued sharing of information and expertise throughout the industry, Local Government can overcome many of the issues it is currently facing. For example, Council’s Manager of Administration Services has been working with a group of practitioners from the Local Government Governance Network, representatives from the Department of Local Government, Privacy NSW and the Ombudsmans Office. They are developing a model Access to Information Policy, a set of Access to Information Guidelines and a set of Frequently Asked Questions, which can be distributed to all Councils across New South Wales.
“It is expected that these documents would be useful to smaller and regional Councils and will assist in achieving some consistency across the State in the way access to information applications are processed,” Gary Bensley said.
The Governance Network and Hornsby Council have also lobbied various State authorities about reviewing existing legislation so that all access to information requirements for Local Government are contained in the one Act, rather than the three that apply at present.
