Shire of Augusta-Margaret River council rejects public review of CEO’s performance

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Shire of Augusta-Margaret River council rejects public review of CEO’s performance

A council submission on proposed reforms affecting the Shire of Augusta-Margaret River’s chief executive has triggered a spray at the State Government.

Last week’s shire council meeting heard members debate a submission to the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries on proposed changes that could force the shire to make sensitive internal information available for public consumption.

While Parliament had already passed the reforms, some of the more contentious changes were not yet in place.

Consultation had included submissions from peak bodies including the WA Local Government Association and the WA branch of the Local Government Professionals Association who were against some of the moves.

Of particular contention in last week’s debate were items first considered by members during a March workshop with the State Government department.

The reforms proposed to publish the shire chief executive’s KPIs and subsequent council-led performance reviews for public transparency as well as introduce an online register to track various activities including gifts and leases.

The tenet of the shire’s feedback was against the public measures which president Julia Meldrum said imposed too much on the local government.

“I would like to see these same regulations and requirements for State Government,” she said at last week’s meeting.

“This is an impost on us and I feel other levels of government should have the same extra regulation.”

Deputy president Tracey Muir echoed remarks made by the president earlier this year about Labor’s reforms undermining the local government sector as a whole.

“It is concerning to me that the Government is continually trying to push forward further regulations that take power away from local governments,” Cr Muir said.

“That takes power away from local communities and we are bearing the brunt of that and there’s considerable extra workload for our staff without commensurate funding available, and I think it’s a concerning development.”

The approved shire submission to DLGSCI backed up criticism from WALGA and said the relationship between councillors and their chief employee could be affected by public reporting requirements.

“A target may be applied as an aspirational point that council and the CEO want to strive towards,” the submission said.

“It is the performance indicators that demonstrate if performance is improving or declining.

“What is important is the direction performance is heading towards, opposed to a potentially difficult to quantify and measure target.”

The submission also noted some aspects of executive feedback could be confidential, and failing to disclose that to the public might cause the impression the shire was not being transparent.

“Certain performance criteria may be confidential including personalised leadership improvements, change management initiatives, restructures, etc.,” the submission said.

Concerns around the public registers were not as ardent, with workload requirements and lack of clarity in some of the department’s stipulated requirements cited in the response.

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