2020-11-10 Services & Organisation Committee Agenda

SERVICES & ORGANISATION COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                            10 NOVEMBER 2020


REPORT
1    Introduction
As Council would be aware, on 12 October 2020, a raft of legislative changes came into effect
which were designed to continue to strengthen governance in local governments across the
State. These reforms were as a result of poor governance in some other councils (notably
Ipswich City Council, Logan City Council etc) where systematic governance failures led to
corruption and ultimately, the dismissal of those councils. Rightly, the State government has
been introducing a range of legislative reform over the last few years designed to ensure that
these governance failures do not occur again.
The most recent round of reforms focuses on updates to conflicts of interest requirements but
there are also a number of other changes. Training on the new provisions has been provided to
Councillors on three occasions and the new process for managing conflicts of interests was
applied to Council’s General Committee and Ordinary meetings in October.
However, the legislative reforms also touched upon a number of other areas and this report is
intended to ensure that our governance is consistent with the latest legislative requirements and
governance publications by the Department of Local Government, Racing and Multicultural
Affairs.

2    Councillor Code of Conduct
Councillors will recall that at the time they were sworn in on 15 April 2020, there was a
requirement for Councillors to agree to abide by the State wide Councillor Code of Conduct.
The Councillor Code of Conduct is consistent for all councils across the State. From time to time,
the State updates the Code of Conduct, with the most recent update being August 2020.
There are no significant changes from previous versions of the Councillor Code of Conduct.
There have been some changes in emphasis and update to references as a result of the most
recent reforms. A copy of the updated Councillor Code of Conduct is provided at Attachment 1 to
this report.
All Councillors should read the updated Code of Conduct in its entirety.
Consistent with past practice, it is also recommended that all Councillors sign a declaration that
they will abide by the Councillor Code of Conduct at all times.

3    Standing Orders for Council Meetings
Standing Orders are the meeting procedure rules which govern how Council’s Standing
Committees and Ordinary meetings are conducted.
A link to our current Standing Orders for Council meetings can be found here -
https://www.noosa.qld.gov.au/downloads/file/934/standing-orders-august-2019
Our current Standing Orders were reviewed in detail in 2019 to update them and to ensure
alignment with legislative requirements. There is now a need to make further changes to those
Standing Orders to reflect the latest requirements from the State government for the conduct of
meetings of Council Standing Committees and Ordinary meetings.
The proposed updated Standing Orders for adoption by Council are provided at Attachment 2 to
this report.
Councillors have also been provided with a copy of a “marked up version” showing the changes
between the current Standing Orders and the proposed updated Standing Orders.




                                                                                  Page 18 of 131