2017-07-17 General Committee Agenda

GENERAL COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                                                   17 JULY 2017


 Council continued to undertake a series of service reviews looking in detail at operations to
   find ways in which we can be more efficient in delivering services. This included areas such
   as the Noosa Leisure Centre, Environmental Health, and Building and Plumbing Services.
   Following these reviews, Council adopted additional staff resources in some parts of the
   organisation to ensure that appropriate service levels can be delivered.
 The transformation of our Workplace Health and Safety performance has continued.
   Significant progress has been made in relation to our documentation, processes and
   practices for Workplace Health and Safety. Based on the LGW Workcover Performance
   statistics for category D Councils we have transitioned from one of the worst performing local
   governments of our size to one of the best performing local governments of our size for Lost
   Time Frequency and Lost Time Injury.
 A Digital Strategy has been developed for management to focus on opportunities available
   with emerging digital technology. This strategy focuses particularly on improving our
   organisational efficiency using digital technology as well as improving our interface to our
   community. During the year, more mobile technology was rolled out to our external workforce.
 We commenced negotiations for a Noosa Council Certified Agreement. Given the recent
   changes to industrial relations legislation and awards, it is only now become possible for
   Council to begin to develop our own Noosa Council Certified Agreement rather than
   continuing to be bound by the former Sunshine Coast Council Certified Agreements. These
   negotiations with unions will continue into the 2017/18 financial year.
 We transitioned our ICT systems to the latest version of the Cloud which provided enhanced
   security and stability for our systems which is important given the number of cyber-attacks
   occurring at the moment. We have also continued to roll out our ICT strategy to enhance our
   system capabilities.
 We undertook significant training and development for leadership capabilities within the
   organisation. This included the continuation of the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI)
   program for our senior management staff (approximately 30 staff leaders). While undertaking
   a significant amount of professional development training for our staff, we still have more to
   do to successfully implement an annual staff development program.
 Although commencing in the 2015/16 financial year, the process of bringing our new Council
   up to speed with the myriad of Council issues was a pre-dominant theme in the first few
   months of the 2016/17 financial year. This involved a significant number of workshops and
   presentations to Councillors to brief them on key strategies, projects and priorities. This was
   quite a seamless process resulting in good governance and good decision-making
   processes.


OTHER ISSUES

There are some other activities which are worth highlighting:
 We have spent a considerable amount of time in the last 12 months continuing to build good
   working relationships with our northern neighbours – Gympie Regional Council. This has
   included regular meetings at a Mayoral and executive level, assisting each other with relevant
   documentation and policies, support for interview panels etc.
 We continue to attract significant interest from other Councils as to how we are successfully
   delivering good outcomes to our community. We have hosted Councils from interstate looking
   at our ICT solutions, hosted local government CEOs from remote parts of Queensland and
   California and hosted other professionals looking at our work practices.




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