Transcript The pursuit of excellence

The Pursuit of Excellence
Graham Sansom
www.acelg.org.au
“[Australia’s tradition of local democracy] is
under threat when local government tries
to cling to the irrelevant or inappropriate,
when it underestimates the significance of
its own responsibility or waits for a lead
from other spheres of government. We
have to do better as well.”
David Plumridge, ALGA President , 1995
Overview
• NOT a research institute: practical focus
• NOT a representative body or a professional institute
• Consortium: UTS (Centre for Local Government);
University of Canberra (ANZSOG Institute); ANZSOG;
LGMA; IPWEA
• $8m federal ‘endowment’ for minimum 5-year operations
• In fact, at least another 2-3 years
• Inaugural Board meeting held 1 October 2009
• Formal launch and Project Plan adopted December 2009
- plan to be reviewed annually
ACELG Board
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Hon Margaret Reynolds (Chair)
Cr Geoff Lake (ALGA)
Ms Stephanie Foster (DITRDLG)
Prof Attila Brungs, Deputy VC, UTS
Prof John H Howard, Pro VC, UC
Mr Peter Allen, ANZSOG
Ms Penny Holloway, LGMA
Mr John Truman, IPWEA
The Brief
• Showcase innovation and best practice across local
government
• Encourage the adoption of innovative practices and
solutions
• Specific focus on financial planning and asset
management
• Assist local government to achieve a leading role in
policy debates
• Nationally coordinated approach to training and
development
• Local government as an employer of choice
Guiding principles
• The Centre must be grounded in and serve the local
government system: it should not be an outsider,
academic organisation
• The Centre should focus on adding value, filling gaps
and seeding new initiatives: it should not compete with
existing programs
• Given limited resources, the Centre must focus on a
limited number of strategic interventions
– Integration of ACELG programs essential
Some key challenges
• Financial sustainability post GFC – smaller councils
in particular
• Integrated asset management and financial planning
• Ageing population – impacts and opportunities
• Social inclusion
• Closing the Gap
• Climate change and environmental management
• City planning and governance of metropolitan areas
• Regional economic development
• National productivity
Financial and asset management
• Integrated approach to reflect issues
– $1.25m over first 5 years + LGRF projects (?)
• Two components:
– Identify sector capacity gaps and support development of
national frameworks and standards in priority areas
– Develop specific capacity building resources
• Outcomes:
– A more consistent and better coordinated national
approach to improving local government performance
– National standards or guidelines adopted in key areas of
planning, management and service delivery
– A range of operational tools, guidelines and other capacity
building resources to facilitate improved performance
– Capacity building resources widely utilised and
demonstrable improvement in skills
…continued
• Year 1 program:
– Support implementation of federal Reform Fund (inc
frameworks for regional collaboration)
– Establish working relationship with LGPJC and LGPMC
– Consult widely to identify further priority areas for
capacity building
– Asset management for small communities
– Tools and guidelines for long term financial planning
(partly LGRF)
– Identify and assemble necessary baseline data (LGRF)
– Formulate national assessment framework for improved
asset and financial management (partly LGRF)
– Impacts of climate change on assets (LGRF/research)
• Year 2:
– Community of Practice and practice notes
• Program Manager appointed (Leon Patterson)
Related programs
• Close links between financial and asset
management and all other programs,
especially:
– Research and policy foresight
– Innovation and best practice
– Workforce development
• Your contributions (eg ‘better practice’
examples) and ideas on next steps are most
welcome!
The pursuit of excellence
• Local government MUST do more to secure its future:
– Acceptance of transformational change (at the top)
– Relevance, capacity, credibility
– National approach
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Management AND elected members
Improved understanding of key policy issues/agendas
Creation of a much greater depth of leadership talent
Concerted action to address gaps in workforce skills
and management expertise
• Improved strategic management and governance:
– Business improvement, benchmarking, openness to
scrutiny, collaborative approaches etc
• Consistent and expanded efforts to tackle underlying
financial problems