Cassowary Coast Regional Council

There is no shortage of projects and works that the council could undertake, but there is a limit to the ability of rate payers to fund our activities.

Council endeavours to make savings and improve efficiencies and this process is ongoing.

A Service Review Panel has been set up, comprised of all councillors, meeting regularly, to identify savings. These savings will be used to: reduce debt; develop opportunities; assist asset refurbishment and maximise grants and subsidies.

Savings will not be used for recurrent expenditure items, as this would not improve the overall financial position of the council.

Any reserve will be used for the renewal or replacement of existing assets, rather than the creation of new ones.

Of course expanded services, where necessary and the purchase of new assets will need to occur. These will be funded from other sources, including subsidies and in some instances debt (particularly where the assets generate income such as water and sewerage infrastructure).

The Service Review Panel will utilise the skills and knowledge of our staff who are often in the best position to identify savings.

We will also benchmark against similar councils. Benchmarking is the process used to compare our performance in particular areas against the performance of other councils. There are nine similarly sized councils in Queensland, plus the three adjacent councils, that we could use to test our performance.

Benchmarking does not need to be done at a detailed level for every type of service. It can be as simple as comparing unit rates used for particular services by another council and if they are performing well, finding out why.

Also the Department of Local Government publishes annual comparisons of councils across a range of services and this is a ready source of data that provides some useful indicators of areas that can improved.

Benchmarking is also possible at a financial ratio level, where it is relatively easy to compare financial performance across a range of indicators after the production of the annual financial statements.

One of the important issues addressed at the first meeting of the panel was the priorities for review over the coming year. The Strategic Financial Action Plan identified a number of areas that could be addressed sooner rather than later. These include:

• Roadside vegetation (mowing standards etc)
• Gravel road maintenance
• Plant utilisation
• Motor vehicle fleet
• Corporate overheads
• Duplication of services
• Parks
• Community Facilities

Staff have already undertaken a review of plant utilisation and the motor vehicle fleet.

It was felt important to undertake a review of an internal service in the first instance in order to demonstrate to the community that the council is getting its own house in order before any review is undertaken of services provided directly to the community.