Future Directions is a regular feature. This month we interviewed Phil Pearce, CEO of Mildura Rural City Council in Victoria.
Phil Pearce began his Local Government career with the Rural City of Ararat in 1995 following a lengthy career in the Australian Army. He was CEO at the Shire of Campaspe for five years before being appointed CEO at the Rural City of Mildura in 2003. Phil holds a Master of Business Administration and a Master of Public Policy and Management.
He believes that shared services is one of the keys to Councils becoming best practice organisations in the future.
“Shared services deliver benefits in many areas,” Phil Pearce said. “Major benefits, and those significant to regional and rural Councils, include cost savings due to economies of scale for purchasing and implementation, as well as access to services and technologies not attainable by individual Councils.
“Community benefits include increased levels of customer service, and a reduction in operating costs due to improved business processes and associated cost savings.” In north west Victoria, Mildura and Swan Hill Rural City Councils, along with Buloke, Gannawarra, Yarriambiack, Hindmarsh, West Wimmera and Loddon Shire Councils, are investigating how pooling their resources can benefit both their region and organisations. Seven of these eight Councils have signed a Shared Statement of Intent, which comprises a three phase definition of shared services.
Phil Pearce said the group is hopeful that the Municipal Association of Victoria will support the North West Victoria Local Government initiative as a Pilot Project as it develops its Shared Services Model.
The first phase is a shared infrastructure layer, where communications services are improved and standardised across the region. This requires improved communications infrastructure to be rolled out to regional areas to deliver increased bandwidth and improved broadband access to stakeholders.
Configuration of the communications infrastructure would then occur to create a ‘Local Government Community Network’ providing each Council with the required connectivity.
“Phase two is shared information systems,” Phil Pearce said. “This builds on the communications foundation and enables the sharing of common information systems within the Local Government Community Network. Obvious choices for shared systems include internet gateway, email server, and web servers, with the opportunity for information systems sharing to progress to include financial and asset management systems.”
Phil Pearce said this phase would be complemented by the construction of an enterprise data centre. The centre would provide hosting services to accommodate the shared systems and offer provision for disaster recovery and business continuity services. “The third phase is true shared services,” Phil Pearce said.
“This is built on top of shared infrastructure and systems and is characterised by the consolidation of resources and refining of processes. The result is an improved ability to deliver centralised technical and administrative services.”
Phil Pearce said that opportunities for a shared service solution include customer call centre operations, central payroll and human resource functions, a central Information Technology helpdesk, and potentially accounting and asset management.
Examples of private companies sharing financial services already exist. Loddon Mallee Health Alliance has implemented a central financial system with a common chart of accounts for each agency in its region.
Future benefits could also include integration and access to Council data by external organisations such as water utility infrastructure and health providers, tourism agencies and other government departments.
“The benefits are potentially huge,” Phil Pearce said. “Pooling resources has the potential to cut costs in duplication, while providing access to state of the art technology including quality broadband connections, pooling expertise that can be difficult to source and helping Councils through disaster recovery.”
For further information on the North West Model contact Simon Virgona, Mildura Rural City Council’s Systems Integration Officer, on (03) 5018 8155.
