Future Directions is a regular feature. This month we interviewed Penny Holloway, President LGMA NSW and General Manager North Sydney Council, NSW.
As General Manager of North Sydney Council, Penny Holloway oversees an annual budget of $75 million and 380 full time staff. She has a broad range of responsibilities from strategic planning through to the delivery of services on the ground.
“As a leader, my focus is on taking the organisation forward and making a difference, physically, socially, environmentally and economically,” she said.
North Sydney has long pursued a triple bottom line approach to sustainability. In 2005, Council was awarded the NSW Keep Australia Beautiful Sustainable Cities Award for its comprehensive approach to sustainability.
“The City has a long term strategic plan, 2020 Vision, with an overarching sustainability goal embracing environmental, social and economic organisational and governance strategies,” Penny Holloway said. “We completed an organisation wide Efficiency Review earlier this year and long term asset management and financial plans are currently being developed. They aim towards sustainable financing of infrastructure and services.
“Council has also signed up to ICLEI’s triple bottom line planning and reporting program.”
In terms of sustainability, Penny Holloway believes the key challenges for Councils are:
- Financial sustainability – having sufficient funds to build, manage and maintain infrastructure and to provide required community services.
- Environmental sustainability – showing leadership in environmental management and environmental stewardship of the Local Government area.
- Social sustainability – social capacity building within the community, providing support services and achieving social cohesion.
- Good governance and organisational sustainability – having systems in place for good leadership, good relationships between Councillors and staff, and skilled staff to manage systems and provide services.
“These challenges will continue into the future, becoming more difficult and harder to manage if not tackled,” Penny Holloway said.
She said that climate change will have an impact on all Local Governments.
“There will be serious environmental pressures and Councils will have to respond to the consequences,” she said. “There will be both increased centralisation of power federally, but also increased devolution of responsibility for service delivery to Local Government. Ageing infrastructure will need ongoing investment and Councils will continue to struggle for sustainable finances. With an ageing population, there will be an increasing demand for services, however, this will also mean a diminishing employment pool and skill shortages, which indicates a need to develop workers and leaders of the future.”
Penny said that Councils need to approach problems strategically, but also collectively.
“Councils need to work together to tackle structural issues of financial sustainability,” she said. “Individually, they need to assess their health financially, environmentally, socially and organisationally. Councils need to develop long term strategies aimed at achieving sustainability in all of these areas. They need to gain community support for what they are doing, ensure that they have the staff to provide services and focus on delivering the services that the community wants, needs and is prepared to pay for.”
Penny was elected to the Board of Local Government Managers Australia (LGMA) New South Wales in 2001 and was recently elected as President. She said that the LGMA has developed a series of self assessment tools for checking Councils’ health.
“The last in the series is the Sustainability Health Check produced for the LGMA by Sustainable Futures Australia in partnership with the NSW Department of Environment and Conservation,” she said. “This Health Check allows Councils to assess sustainability both within the organisation and in relation to the community, and develop actions plans for improvement.”
