An important thing that needs to be taken into account, and that candidates need to be questioned about, is LCC’s reliance upon expensive and the often very ordinary outcomes delivered by consultants.
Why are ratepayers allowing the Council to use these people so often without protest? Why are consultants being commissioned when high salaries are paid to Council officers who are supposedly employed for their expertise? Do they not have the wherewithal to run a project and consult with the community? If not why not?
In 2014 any earnest manager of almost any operation should be delivering the opportunity dividends that information technologies are now delivering administrations elsewhere, in fact almost everywhere. When is it likely that these dividends will be made available to Launceston’s ratepayers? Does the city have the most competent and most qualified staff available? Has the city’s aldermen been asking this kind of question anywhere near often enough?
If the answer to any of these questions is no, then ratepayers need to be quizzing aldermanic candidates very closely about what they have to offer and what they can contribute. It is clear that Launceston Town Hall needs a good flush and an intensive operational audit to deal with the build up of administrative plaque.
There has been a long tradition of Launceston’s aldermen being sidelined by the administrators telling them that they have no role in administration. Quite right too! However, the aldermen are accountable to the ratepayers and consequently they must hold their officers accountable accordingly.
Ask the candidates you are likely to vote for if they will hold Council officers accountable. If they are incumbents ask them if they think they have done so and then make your judgements.
An audit of workplace practice and management methodologies is likely to expose some sorry tales. Ask the candidates if they are up to the task ahead of them? Ask them about the social dividends they should be able to deliver on. Most of all ask, are you ready to listen to your constituency and act?
Aldermen and officers are salaried but the only way constituents can get value for money is if they hold the city’s administrators accountable. There should be no room for aldermen, new or old, who are prepared to let things go in these difficult times
Peter Hill
hillside@tassie.net.au
1 comment:
Ask candidates what their plan is for Launceston. The current bunch only has a plan to leave it to management. If candidates have no ideas, how can we justify paying them - the Mayor is paid over $100,000 p.a. for what? Wearing chains and mumbling about how good things are?
Launceston needs Aldermen with ideas for the future, active people who make sure that the management is focussed on what ratepayers need.
Become the organisational laxative that flushes these tired hacks out!
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