Inner West Council, New South Wales, has received recognition for it’s continued efforts to harmonise and improve services at the annual Local Government Procurement Awards.
The Awards recognise excellence and best practice in the field of procurement within the local government sector.
Mayor, Darcy Byrne, said there was still years of work ahead in fully harmonising Council’s services, and that Council was moving as quickly as possible to identify the best of the services offered by the three former Councils of Ashfield, Leichhardt, and Marrickville, and then introducing these across the entire new local government area.
“It’s about protecting all the things good in the former three councils but also raising the bar and extending the things the councils did well into the other areas.
“It’s really gratifying that all our hard work so far has been recognised in this way.”
The Mayor said Council was on track to meet the four percent savings target identified in this year’s budget while protecting jobs and without cutting services.
“Instead, we have concentrated on harmonising computer systems and improving procurement to reduce costs.
“For example, by consolidating our cleaning tenders across all Inner West Council sites, we’ve saved over $600,000.
“And by teaming up with Strathfield, Burwood and Canada Bay councils on a new Library Management System, we saved
another $80,000.
“Just through better purchasing, we have saved our community almost a million dollars.”
Local Government Procurement Chief Executive Officer, Luke Kenny, said, “Local Government Procurement congratulates Inner West Council for achieving the advanced stage in the Leading Efficiency and Analytics Program (LEAP).
“The program is a joint initiative of Local Government Procurement and ArcBlue Consulting and recognises 16 percent improvement in procurement maturity and $946,000 procurement savings for 2018.”
