2017-03-13 General Committee Agenda

GENERAL COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                                                  13 MARCH 2017


3.   The Council has just adopted a new Corporate Plan which defines the focus and priorities
     for the coming years and the organisational structure should reflect those priority areas. Of
     the three reasons, this is the most compelling as “structure follows strategy”.

The review was led by myself with support from the Executive Officer. Early in the process, eight
key review principles were established to guide the review. The eight review principles were:

1.    No forced redundancies: We are in the growth phase for staff numbers so the clear
     intention is not to have any forced redundancies.

2.   Meeting the change / benefit equation (not change for changes sake): Only making a
     change where we are positive that it would meet one or more of these principles.

3.   “Like with like” functions to maximise effectiveness: Ensuring that functions that are
     inter-related are put together from an organisational structure perspective.

4.   Outward facing organisation: We should have more departments focused on direct service
     delivery than internal functions (from start-up phase to ongoing phase).

5.   Operational efficiency: Will the change make our service delivery more efficient?

6.   Reflection of Council’s priorities: The new structure reflects our Council’s priorities (as per
     the new Corporate Plan).

7.   Addressing new areas of business: Finding the right organisational home for emerging
     issues (e.g. Zero Emissions, Peregian Digital Hub management).

8.   Is a structural change the best solution: Are there other options for solving an issue other
     than structure (e.g. strategy, Project Control Group etc).

All ideas and input were examined against these eight principles.


Benchmarking with other Councils

As part of the research process to review our organisational structure, we examined the structure
of a number of other like sized Councils. We looked at Lockyer Valley, Scenic Rim, Somerset,
Whitsunday, Cassowary Coast, Central Highlands, Gympie and Isaac. No two structures were the
same.

However, it should also be noted that an organisational structure is not the be all and end all of
whether our Council can successfully deliver the outcomes required by our community. In fact, it
is arguably, one of the least important. The issues of culture and strategy are more significant in
terms of organisation effectiveness while systems/processes and structure can have a bigger
impact on organisation efficiency.




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