2014-03-31 General Committee Agenda

GENERAL COMMITTEE MEETING REPORT                                                 31 MARCH 2014


3.   Benchmarking

The Noosa Council is a Category 4 Council in the Local Government Remuneration classification
system. It is also classified as URM (Urban Regional Medium) in the Australian Local
Government classification system. As such, it is appropriate to benchmark with other
Queensland Local Governments in those or similar categories.

The benchmarking outcomes are listed in Attachment 1.

Key points to note in relation to this benchmarking exercise are as follows:
 Noosa Council is in the lower range of staffing levels;
 Staffing levels depend on the degree of contracting for services by different Councils (for
   example, one Council may contract out garbage services and another may use day labour);
 Staffing levels and ratios (e.g. salaries as a percentage of expenditure) may also depend on
   the range and level of services provided by each Council; and
 Nevertheless, across the range of comparable Councils, Noosa Council is running as a lean
   organisation.

4.   Key Changes Proposed to the Interim Structure

The key changes proposed to the interim structure are:
 The three Departments to be named Corporate Services, Community Services and Planning
   & Infrastructure Services. The existing Executive Office to be retained (with the title of Chief
   of Staff to be changed to Executive Manager);
 The Town Planning functions to be transferred to the Planning and Infrastructure Services
   Department;
 The Pest Management function and Environmental Health function to be combined with the
   Waste Services area to form a Waste and Environmental Health Section to be located in the
   Community Services Department;
 The natural areas function to be transferred from the environment function to the Parks and
   Natural Areas section (formerly parks and gardens).
 An additional position to be added to Customer Service area to improve response times to
   customers;
 The Libraries and Art Gallery functions are located under the Cultural Facilities function;
 The existing Infrastructure areas are structured into Asset Planning, Asset Design &
   Investigations and Civil Operations; and
 A range of vacant positions have been abolished creating savings. Most of these positions
   are unwarranted management positions or back-office positions that are not required.
 Two additional resources are being allocated into frontline parks workers positions.

Establishing Staff Working Groups

One of the risks of having an Organisational Structure is that silos can develop. One way
(besides the organisational culture) to make sure this does not occur is to have a series of cross
Council Working Groups that cut across boundaries. A number of staff Working Groups are
proposed – Design, Community Engagement, Asset Management and Sustainability. The
Community Facilities Manager will also be given responsibility to look at business improvement
and business opportunities to improve Council’s bottom line.




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