Council Adopts New Management Structure
November 28, 2007: Council’s senior administration will be restructured under a plan adopted by Councillors that will see greater communication and a focus on economic outcomes to drive the shire into the future.
The new structure is based on combined recommendations of General Manager Graeme Faulkner and proposals from the Operational Examination conducted by H M Davison & Associates.
Councillors supported the recommendation for change as part of a Committee of the Whole report on Tuesday night.
Mayor Tony Allen said the new structure would deliver cost savings to the community and see a continuation of a natural attrition strategy to further reduce the work force and save redundancy costs to Council.
“The Council is endeavouring to achieve the outcomes delivered in the Operational Examination, but we are doing it through cost efficient means,” Cr Allen said.
“This will be achieved through staff turnover, retirements and salary savings. It is important that we achieve these goals without further borrowings or one-off asset sales. The decision to support a combined restructure will eliminate redundancy costs which were calculated at $500,000.
“The efficiency and effectiveness of any organisation is not a function of structure alone, but rather a product of skill levels, experience, morale, capacity, motivation and leadership at all levels within the organisation.
“Any change to the existing structure must be analysed in terms of the impact on all of the above with a view to projecting the likely outcomes of the change implemented.
“Implementing the Operational Examination model there would have been a first year cost of $297,000 because of redundancies and outsourcing, while recurrent savings would amount to $273,000 per annum, however under the new structure Council expects to make a saving of $9140 in the first year and recurrent savings of $379,123 from year two.”
The new structure will be headed by the General Manager and will include a Chief Operating Officer. Another key focus of the structure is the development of cross functional reporting teams.
The new structure will establish three anchor divisions in addition to Infrastructure Services and Planning Environment Development services. These are:
- Customer Service and Community Development
- A Finance Division reporting to the Chief Operating Officer
- A Strategic Services Division, incorporating Human Resources and Information Technology as proposed by HM Davison.
The group managers will have operational responsibility for their divisions in addition to operational responsibility for the achievement of objectives set for staff in all other divisions.
“Council is mindful of the pending retirement of senior staff and is endeavouring to retain skills following an exodus of expertise from the organisation during the last year. While many employees moved from the region for career development we have also seen a number of retirements.
“The new structure will allow for greater training opportunities and to put in place a succession plan for senior staff.”
General Manager Graeme Faulkner said the new structure would give greater emphasis on economic development opportunities and cross organisational communication.
Those cross functional operational objectives will include the following
- Customer Services & Community Development: the development, implementation and assessment of all service performance standards for all relevant employees throughout the organisation, with the objective of improving quality and timeliness of service provision together with increased and reciprocated communication flow from the organisation to its customer base;
- Chief Operating Officer – Finance Division: the development, implementation and assessment of all financial reporting, performance standards (including those related to management accounting and zero-based budgeting) throughout the organisation in a manner that develops intra and inter-divisional expertise and knowledge;
- Strategic Services: the development, implementation and assessment of performance standards for all employees relating to:
- skills and knowledge development in the Human Resources and Information Technology fields in the knowledge that these two sectors are recognised catalysts for change that is occurring at global, regional and local areas currently
- the institutionalisation within Council’s workforce of an “awareness of the impact” that employee recommendations have on the potential generation of commercial and economic activity within the Bega Valley Shire
- the “externalisation” of Council’s Human Resource and Information Technology functions, such that they facilitate the development of related skills and knowledge in the community generally as well as throughout the organisation.
“The rise of the “knowledge-based” economy has direct implications for BVSC as it grapples with future economic development and endeavours to identify and assist the development of these industries of the future that will underpin economic prosperity our shire,” Mr Faulkner said.
“Council’s evolving strategy of fixed term project-based committees, together with the establishment of the strategic services division, in which the concept of commercial activity and economic development are embedded throughout the organisation, is establishing a platform to address these future development issues.
“H M Davison identified human resources and information technology as agents of change within the organisation and the proposed structure advances a platform to externalise these agents to assist the community in addition to the administration.”
Mr Faulkner said the new structure would immediately explore a number of key issues including borrowing strategy aimed at addressing Councils’ $44 million in borrowings as at June 2007 and the development of an activity-based accounting and management reporting service and the centralisation of commercial activities and contract administration with a long term view of possibly outsourcing these functions.
“We will also be exploring and implementing communication strategies that will continue to develop Council’s relationship with ratepayers and the community,” Mr Faulkner said.
