COUNCIL PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

Well it has to be said that Frank Dean hits the nail on the head. North Midlands' Councilors have behaved better than many other Council and demonstrated some constraint. What is often noticeable for Council budgets in general terms is that they typically increase at a rate in excess of the CPI.

If you ask an officer why this is so and you'll get a load of blah blah blah blah AND your bull dust alarm will ring very early in the conversation. Ask an Alderman/Councilor and you'll typically get officer generated bureau babble spouted at you and something along the lines that it is hard to blah blah blah blah AND your bull dust alarm will ring very loudly again.

What we all need to understand is that largely council officers are:

• very good at spending ratepayers' money;
• often not all that good at accountability
  
• good at ensuring that their salaries and superannuation continually rise without too much performance assessment interfering; and
• not at all good at devising alternative income opportunities to relieve ratepayers' rate bills – waste management versus resource recovery being a very good example.

Aldermen and Councillors need to hold their officers more accountable and ensure that they diligently carry out Council policy. They should also be subjected to regular tests that will tell ratepayers just how well they have performed against a set of standards.