Is Albury Council efficient?

As a new Councillor (only been going 4 months) I ask myself how does this council compare with other similar councils in NSW and elsewhere for that matter.

The Division of Local Government publishes annual comparison reports in which they give statistics for such things as number of employees, rates, expenditure on various things.  They group similar councils together and we are in group 4.  The comparisons are interesting but don't give me a real feel for how good we might be.  We are certainly towards the top with respect to the number of employees and the cost of rates in all categories.  But perhaps we provide better services than other councils and that costs more?

TCorp also published annual reports in which they give a lot of ratios such as debt service ratio, operating deficit, infrastructure backlog and so on.  Useful but I still don't feel that I have a feel for how good or bad the council is. 

Perhaps we should be involved in some meaningful benchmarking with other councils such as Wagga Wagga, Tamworth, Bathurst, etc.  I'd be happy to hear your suggestions on this one.

I did a quick exercise last week looking at lost time injury frequency rates and what this means for employee health and workers compensation premiums.  Our LTIFR is 12 – 15 and we pay almost $1.5 million in workers compensation insurance premiums (as well as having significant injuries to our employees).  By comparison, Melton City Council in Victoria has an LTIFR of 5, Wodonga’s is currently 2 and Norske Skog’s is 0.  The paper nill has not had a lost time injury for 2 years.  A huge opportunity to save money and to look after our employees. 

I was not able to get the actual figures from councils so I used a proxy which is the annual amount of salaries and wages divided by the workers compensation premium amount.  The higher this ratio is the better is the council's safety record.  It's a bit crude but it gives an idea of the issue.  The ones I calculated are Albury 18, Wagga 26, Bathurst 14 and Tamworth 40.  On this basis we are not doing too well.

If you have any other ideas of what we should be benchmarking I would like to hear from you.

The start of a new year

Ready to begin a new year and it is hot, hot, hot!  It feels like one of the old summers we used to get here in Albury.

On a personal note I am back on my bike and slowly building up my fitness after the little health scare last year and am enjoying the break and hot weather to laze around and read.  Just finished the 2012 Book of Australian Science Writing - perhaps it should be compulsory for various radio commentators and others who have such strong opinions but little knowledge about many things.

We are having a break from Council and we resume on the 29th of January for what will be the most important meeting of the 4 year term.  We get to choose the new General Manager for Albury City!

The petition about the Art Gallery is interesting.  I am encountering a lot of resistance when asking people to sign.  People think they are endorsing the redevelopment and the Council contribution of $7 million.  I explain that it is only asking the NSW Government to help fund the project but there is certainly resistance.

I support the redevelopment but I am not happy with the way Council has gone about it. WIth 4 independently elected councillors, you would think that the mood for change would be well understood.  Unfortunately I don't get that feeling at all.