2018-19 A Year in Review

Other Initiatives to enable Council to achieve its goal for this theme
 The corporate Council website has started the  Our enterprise risk management has been
   transition to a new content management                    further developed with risk management
   system.       Community      Engagement        has        practices being further embedded into Council
   collaborated with the LGAQ to finalise a new-             operations.      Our comprehensive Business
   look for the website.                                     Continuity Plans are now complete and have
 Council has increased its presence on and use              been tested successfully early in 2019 and also
   of social media platforms, to improve                     been the subject of an internal audit review
   communication and engagement with the wider               which found that the BCP Plans were excellent.
   community. A more targetted approach to social  Over the last 12 months we have implemented
   media engagement on Facebook and Linkedin                 several projects that contribute to the culture
   has been taken. Facebook followers have                   and performance of Council. These include:
   increased by 18% to 8,923. Linkedin followers             o Domestic and Family Violence awareness
   have grown by 55% to 2,022                                     training supported by a DFV strategy to
 The transformation of our Workplace Health and                  support staff who are victims.
   Safety performance has continued. Our most                o Drug and Alcohol testing in the workplace to
   recent internal audit of our WH&S Systems and                  improve worker safety as well as helping
   achieved a score of 80% (up from 19% five                      those staff who may have an issue with their
   years ago). We have transitioned from one of                   use of drugs or alcohol.
   the worst performing local governments of our             o Noosa Region school partnerships where
   size to one of the best performing local                       Council provides in school workshops for
   governments of our size.                                       job interviews and job readiness.
 Although our end of year financial statements              o Under 30’s employee engagement program
   have not yet been finalised, it is clear that we               which aims to reduce turnover of young
   have had another successful financial year.                    employees and provide professional
   Revenues were above budget and expenses                        development and career guidance.
   were below budget. This will be reported to
                                                          We undertook ICT network switch infrastructure
   Council separately in due course.
                                                             replacement providing greater network security
 Council has successfully achieved another                  which improved our ability to monitor network
   unmodified audit from the Queensland Audit                system faults more easily.
   Office with the 2017/18 financial statements
                                                          We undertook significant training and
   being signed off by the QAO in late 2018.
                                                             development for our middle managers with
 The Audit and Risk Committee has continued to              programs focused on team leaders and
   add value to our compliance and performance               supervisors. We also undertook leadership
   for governance and finance. This has included             development for our Leadership Group (our top
   an oversight of our strategic risks, review of key        25 leaders).
   governance and financial policies, review of
   organisational KPIs, development of Business
   Continuity Planning etc. Our two external
   members of the Audit and Risk Committee in
   particular have added significantly to our overall
   governance practices. Although not high profile,
   this Committee plays an important role in
   making sure that Council “dots the i’s and
   crosses the t’s” both in governance and in the
   management of risk. Council’s Internal Audit
   Program included internal audits on:
   o Overtime;
   o Business Continuity Plans; and
   o Risk Management strategies.