Image: Brett Sayer.
After the controversial local government amalgamations imposed by the New South Wales Mike Baird government in May 2016, councils in the state are trying to pick up the pieces and ensure that the difficult process of merging works in their favour.
To help councils face the big challenges in merging, peak body organisation Local Government New South Wales (LGNSW) has announced that it will run special workshops in metropolitan and regional locations for all councils being forcibly amalgamated.
LGNSW President Keith Rhoades said the workshops have been designed to boost assistance to councils facing the expensive and complex merger process announced by Minister for Local Government Paul Toole on 12th May, 2016.
The workshops are meant to ensure that affected councils have a clear path to amalgamation, and are able to overcome the expensive and cumbersome processes in merging, which could have a potential impact on which days the rubbish is collected or how much community members pay in rates.
And it’s not like affected councils can just drop what they’re doing while the administrative backroom handovers take place. Ratepayers expect the same services to be carried out.
Mr Rhoades said councils about to undertake the amalgamation process need to keep their operations going while finalising new governance and organisational structures, bringing together two or more large workplaces, harmonising service delivery and asset management across the new entities, preparing new financial and contractual arrangements, merging complex business systems, developing new strategic plans, and continuing to inform and engage their communities.
Quite a list.
“Just trying to synthesise IT systems is a massive and expensive task,” Mr Rhoades said.
As a part of the Association’s plan to help councils through this ordeal, it’s developed an ‘amalgamation toolkit’ and it will send experts into the field to help make the process as “smooth as possible”.
Mr Rhoades said the state government had promised merging metropolitan councils up to $10 million to meet amalgamation expenses, while merging regional councils would only be eligible for up to $5 million.
“This needs to be contrasted against the likely significant amalgamation costs,” he said.
“And councils won’t be helped by the ‘Stronger Communities’ fund for community infrastructure projects, because that’s one-off funding for an infrastructure project that will then need to be maintained at ongoing ratepayer expense.”
The workshops would be held at the following regional hubs:
- Sydney (27 May)
- Raymond Terrace (31 May)
- Queanbeyan (6 June)
- Wagga Wagga (26 June)
