2014-01-13 Ordinary Meeting Agenda

ORDINARY MEETING AGENDA                                                        13 JANUARY 2014


6.3       NOOSA DE-AMALGAMATION PROCESS

DOCUMENT INFORMATION
File No

Author            Acting Chief Executive Officer



SUMMARY/PURPOSE
The purpose of this report is to formally provide a report to the Council of the De-amalgamation
process undertaken by the Transfer Manager up to 31 December 2013. As the full process will
only be completed after that date this report is not a final report on the project.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Following the overwhelming “Yes” vote at the referendum held in March 2013, the State
Government then introduced the De-amalgamation Regulation and appointed a Transfer
Manager to bring about the De-amalgamation of the Noosa Shire Council from the Sunshine
Coast Regional Council with effect from 1 January 2014. This report details the work undertaken
to bring this about.

PREVIOUS COUNCIL CONSIDERATION
Nil.

REPORT
The attached report outlines the processes followed to bring about the De-amalgamation. It
cannot be seen as a final report as works will continue post 31 December 2013. It does however
provide a summary of the works undertaken to establish the new Council and ensure
uninterrupted services are delivered to its community.

As detailed in the report, this work was led by a small team who, with the assistance of a number
of dedicated transferring staff, delivered an exceptional outcome. Three areas worthy of mention
are costs, information communications technology (ICT) and service delivery:

      The costs of the De-amalgamation are currently at 35% of the Queensland Treasury
       Corporation (QTC) estimate and our ongoing budget is at no additional cost (0%) as
       compared to the QTC estimate of $2.5 million. This is borne out by the balanced budget,
       with depreciation fully funded and no rate increases, that Council was able to bring down.

      The delivery of an entirely new ICT platform using state of the art innovative methodology
       in 6 months. This is a fully externally hosted (Cloud) system with outsourced application
       managed services through the supplier.. The ICT project has seen no issues of any
       significance. The net result being a saving $4 million in the setup costs and a saving of $1
       million ongoing in annual operating costs.

      On day one, a fully operational organisation was in place to ensure uninterrupted services
       to the community.




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