WHAT A LOAD OF RUBBISH

The Examiner Newspaper: Council services cop low satisfaction rating  July 25, 2013, midnight ... CLICK HERE TO READ THIS ARTICLE

The LGAT satisfaction survey revealed that 12 per cent of Tasmanians believe waste management needed improvement, even though that service received the second-highest satisfaction rating at 77 per cent ... A LOCAL government satisfaction survey has returned the lowest score in 12 years.

It is rather interesting that this article drew these online comments: 

• tassied – given our state's location and population, I'm not sure what the ultimate answer is but councils need to do more on e-waste. the LCC facility will, as I understand it, only take TVs and computers & peripherals - what about all the other electronic things such as clock radios, microwaves, old CDs, turntables, power tools etc etc etc - any wonder there had to be a huge cleanup at Corra Lynn the other day
• Alpal – About 6 months ago I took an old busted stereo and a fire damaged microwave to the Remount Rd facility. They accepted them without any problems at all.
• tassied – well, maybe i'd better try again but i was definitely not given the impression that those sorts of things were not accepted as e-waste - they could go in as general rubbish, which isn't environmentally acceptable
• Alpal  – Now I think about it I didn't even ask - I took it from the back of my vehicle and gave it to staff at the e-waste area. Hopefully that's the system they used to deal with it. I wasn't charged anything. Good luck with yours.
•  Cedric O'Donnell –  The email circulating by Barry Hodge obo COUNCILS NOW [ CLICK HERE] does not address the concerns and complaints by ratepayers. Whether the local government staff like it or not, they are part of the problem and this cannot be shifted over to the elected councilors so easily. Senior council staff are most to blame, because it is at that level that the day to day operation of council is delegated. It is a skilful General Manager that keeps his council bickering and distracted whilst the senior staff do what they like.
Waste management is NOT misunderstood by the ratepayers and they want a more responsible solution to this. More recycling and less landfill, but these options are not provided. Rediculously expensive mechanisation like the moving floor at Remount Road Tip are not the sort of solutions requested by ratepayers and they had no say in this at all. The entire concept came from staff who managed as usual to hoodwink councilors.
Recycle and separate at the source is the only way to go, not dump it all into a single collection bin and then contaminate the lot which is so utterly stupid. 
• Poo City – With the appalling state of the Tamar , I would refuse to pay my rates ...
talk about fiddling while Rome burns - EVERY level of govt should be sacked ..

COMMENT: Barry Hodge on COUNCILS NOW is a confusing insertion into the Local Govt. debate.  Yet again, the tail is wagging the dog!  There are plenty of issues that might be debated but council officers and/or their supporters do nothing at all to improve the ways local communities interact with their local governments and those employed by them when they apparently support Barry Hodge and his merry band. 

Councillors and Aldermen are accountable to their communities and council staff are ultimately accountable to them. However it seems that councillors and aldermen are increasingly allowing their officers to act alone and not necessarily in ways that are respectful of constituents' needs and aspirations.

Waste management is but one issue and their is unlikely to be any change here until councils change the signs over the gates of waste management centres to resource recovery centres.

An argument AGAINST passing the proposed referendum

Currently it is unclear what support there will be for forthcoming referendum to proceed at all. We are yet to receive an argument FOR passing the proposed referendum.
In the meantime, we are able to publish this video link to the view put forward by the Institute of Public Affairs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvXaLMCdpS4

Ratepayers are likely to keep on paying over the top for their rates

Well its not insignificant that Launceston commenced the new financial year by sacking 11 ‘asphalters’ for apparently being too expensive to keep. 

It’s the same old, same old economic rationalism that usually ends up demonstrating the opposite to what is promised. However, just for a moment let’s imagine that the strategy works as general manager Robert Dobrzynski promises. 

After that take the argument to somewhere interesting in regard to managing the city’s budget. 

Rumour has it that the LCC staff ratio between doers (outside workers) and administrators (desk workers) is currently around about 20 something percent doers, 70 something percent desk workers. To be generous, the LCC bureaucracy appears to be overblown. 

Any bureaucracy needs to administer itself but the key is what percentage of its budget is invested in maintaining the ‘bureaucratic machine’. A good proportion of the 70 plus percent of desk workers will be dedicated to bureaucratic machine maintenance. 

It would be interesting if LCC’s aldermen had the bottle to demand an credible audit of the relative costs of bureau maintenance, ratepayer admin services and practical service deliverers. The result would be interesting for all to see. 

However, if the audit ever gets to be done, ratepayers are highly unlikely find out even the smallest detail even if they take out an FOI. However presuming for a moment this information gets to see the light of day, with that kind of information to hand the next proposition aldermen might consider is what money could be saved, and how much the ratepayers would save, if LCC was economically rationalised under a new business model dedicated to delivering value for money. 

The first department that could be rationalised would be LCC’s Finance Dept. There is a number of external service providers that could handle this and very competitively. LCC ratepayers would win and a nonperforming operation could be dismissed and replaced with an operation that could deliver. 

After that, LCC’s Waste Management could be outsourced, sorry, rationalised. This might even mean that the infrastructure committed to waste management could be reconfigured to resource recovery with the operator paying dividends to investors, the region’s waste being managed sustainably and the ratepayers having a financial burden relieved. 

After that, Infrastructure Management could also be outsourced. Reportedly there are contractors available to take on the work with plant and equipment in hand. The competition for contract work would ensure savings to ratepayers resulting in reduced need for rate increases and possibly better quality work on the ground. 

After that, LCC’s Parks and Recreation team could be replaced with outsourced contractors. Clearly there would be savings to be had here also and there would be opportunities to upgrade the service outcomes to boot. 

After that, LCC could contract out its Security Services and Compliance Policing. Plus, there are additional opportunities to rationalise LCC’s so called services towards achieving more affordable and better quality services to the city’s ratepayers and in ways that would be fully accountable. 

However, LCC’s current operational managers are not likely to facilitate any such audit that would point towards delivering services in this kind of way and more affordable too. Why? Well its quite simple really as the argument for consistently increasing responsibilities, and thus bigger salaries, would be counteracted along with unsustainable administration being put to one side for the benefit of ratepayers. 

Another thing, currently the people employed to manage and deliver various services need the assistance of consultants to tell them how to do their job – the one they are salaried to do. Outsourced service providers are unlikely to afford the luxury of consultants employed to do their work for them. That would mean large chunks of cash could be saved, $30K to $50K at a time, thus saving ratepayers a zillions.

Gordon Yates July 2013

State Government Funding for the QVMAG

I see that the Council is making a pitch to the State Government for more funding for the QVMAG. In support of the Council’s case the General Manager notes that ‘the State Government provides substantial funding to Hobart’s TMAG which receives no funding from the Hobart City Council’.

You can’t, however, compare apples with oranges. The TMAG is not ‘proudly owned’ by the Hobart City Council. It is governed by an independent board which operates under the auspices of the State.

Until a similar structural arrangement is put in place for the QVMAG, recognising that the collections are held in trust for all Tasmanians and are not just the exclusive property of the Launceston City Council, the General Manager and aldermen will be doing you know what into the wind.

Greg Parkinson
Trevallyn

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