An interview with Phillipa Major, Acting CEO and Director Corporate and Community Services, MacDonnell Shire Council, Northern Territory
It is often acknowledged that Local Government is best placed to deliver essential community services, as it is at the grassroots level and best understands the needs of its respective communities.
But with increasing community expectations in relation to services comes the need for more funding and more resources.
Phillipa Major identified this as one the key challenges currently facing the provision of community services, and she expects this to continue into the future.
She said funding shortfalls are of particular concern to Northern Territory councils, where Local Government reform was introduced in March 2008.
The reform was intended to improve and expand the delivery of services to towns and communities but it has also created challenges. For example, many councils have taken on additional roles.
“Regionalised Local Government in the Northern Territory is unique, with characteristics that do not exist in other levels of government, nor in the corporate or non government sectors,” Phillipa Major said.
“Like many of the new councils, MacDonnell Shire is providing a raft of what we call agency, commercial and other services in addition to our core business. These services include aged and disability care, Centrelink services, child care, running of community stores, post offices and airstrips.
“Agency services are delivered on behalf of other government agencies through separate funding agreements, while commercial services, such as power and water, are undertaken on behalf of non government agencies through contractual arrangements with the intention of using profits to improve services to the community.
“However, on a large number of occasions, the funding received to provide these services does not cover the cost of providing the services to an acceptable standard. This often means Council is left to top up the funding, or to not provide some services, which creates shortfalls or lack of community satisfaction in the other services provided.
“Through ongoing discussions with funding agencies we hope to alleviate these funding issues into the future, so residents are not compromised in terms of the standard and level of service provision they receive.”
Phillipa Major also highlighted distance as an issue for rural councils.
“The new MacDonnell Shire covers the entire south section of the Northern Territory, servicing some 14 remote communities across an area greater than 268,800 square kilometres,” she said. “This means that funding and contractual agreements often need to be met on an individual community basis, and there could often be some 14 different agreements related to one single service.
“Our strategic business focus to date has been to ensure that our Shire Headquarters has sufficient capacity to provide effective coordination of services, in addition to financial management and administrative support to our service delivery centres now and into the future.”
Phillipa Major said sporting carnivals and cultural events are essential to maintaining and developing a sense of pride in communities. She said they should be fostered and encouraged as they give people the chance to come together.
“In MacDonnell Shire, community events are highly regarded and celebrated by residents, with people travelling many miles to take part,” Phillipa Major said. “In saying this, it is important that activities are driven by communities and their residents.
“Councils can then play a key role in supporting events in whatever way they can. For example, where there are budgetary constraints, councils can provide inkind support, facilitation or administrative support.
“Support and participate – these are key ingredients to a positive sense of community spirit, which is often hard to create in remote areas.”
