From the Local Government Act: 208B. Best Value Principles
The Best Value Principles are-
(a) all services provided by a Council must meet the quality and cost standards required by section 208D;
(b) subject to sections 3C(2)(b) and 3C(2)(e), all services provided by a Council must be responsive to the needs of its community;
(c) each service provided by a Council must be accessible to those members of the community for whom the service is intended;
(d) a Council must achieve continuous improvement in the provision of services for its community;
(e) a Council must develop a program of regular consultation with its community in relation to the services it provides;
(f) a Council must report regularly to its community on its achievements in relation to the principles set out in paragraphs (a), (b), (c), (d) and (e).
208G. Report on Best Value Principles compliance – At least once every year a Council must report to its community on what it has done to ensure that it has given effect to the Best Value Principles.”
Thus sayeth the law! How Council responds to the law via its compulsory ‘Best Value Report’ is another matter. We’ve uploaded the full document here and note that it is again well hidden on council’s website – so much for ‘reporting to the community’!!!
There are many services included. We’ve decided to highlight the ‘Traffic Management’ section and ask readers to contemplate whether the intent of the Local Government Act is indeed fulfilled via the following –
Service profile:
The Traffic Management Unit manages the Council’s traffic and parking responsibilities. This includes developing policies/strategies on traffic management planning; investigating concerns/issues relating to road safety, traffic efficiency, parking allocation, etc. and managing the capital works program.
Review outcomes:
Quality and cost standards
The major quality standard set for the service is customer satisfaction, in accordance with the Annual Community Satisfaction Survey conducted by the State Government.
- The service achieved a rating of 58%. Whilst this result is lower than last year, it is in the top bracket of scores for “all Councils”, which ranged from 53% to 61%.
- All capital works projects completed improved identified safety issues.
- The service has met all cost standards except for the amount for the Traffic Engineering contract which was reflective of extra resources being employed for projects such as the C60 Amendment (MRC), and the preparation of Council’s Towards Sustainable Transport Strategy.
Responsive
The Service has been responsive to community needs by:
- Meeting with external stakeholders e.g. Municipal Association Victoria, Department of Justice, Department of Transport and Department of Planning and Community Development.
- Implementing the Road Safety Strategy to achieve safety outcomes.
- Implementing the capital works program to achieve safety outcomes.
- Conducting regular meetings with internal and external stakeholders to respond to emerging issues.
- Reviewing the Annual Community Satisfaction Survey conducted by the State Government to understand community views.
- Efficiently responding to complaints and enquiries.
- Involvement with Metropolitan Transport Forum to tackle transport issues.
- Preparing Council’s Towards Sustainable Transport Strategy.
The above measures enhanced service delivery in the following ways:
- Improved residential amenity and safety in local streets.
- Educating drivers about speeding, by using the speed advisory trailer.
- Improved shopping centre safety (Elsternwick).
- Improved school safety through the employment of 63 school crossing supervisors assisting approximately 15,000 school children per day.
- Improved road safety under the capital works program.
- Application of Council policy restricting the issue of residential parking permits to residents in new developments in high parking activity locations.
- Resolving residents’ parking concerns through careful readjustment of the critical balance between parking supply and demand.
Accessible
The service is available Monday to Friday 8.30am–5pm at the Council offices.
Continuous improvement
| Capital projects completed | 14 |
| Traffic & Parking Management customer requests | 4255 |
| Traffic counts and surveys | 133 |
| Council applications for VicRoads funding | 8 |
| Council funded improvements | $767,055 |
| Community consultations | 50 |
| Court prosecutions handled | 74 |
| Supervised school crossings | 63 |
Regular consultation
Consultation during the year included the Annual Community Satisfaction Survey; surveys of interested parties on specific issues; feedback via Council’s Customer Tracking System, highlighting issues and concerns raised by the community; regular meetings with internal and external stakeholders, and meetings with shop owners in local shopping centres.
| Quality and Cost Standards | Target | Performance |
| Customer Satisfaction. | 60% or above in the Annual Community Satisfaction Survey. | 58% |
| Job requests actioned and completed. | 100% of responses to customer requests completed within five working days. | 100% |
| 90% of detailed investigations completed within one month. | 98% | |
| Cost of managing job requests. | Contract amount in tender is not exceeded. | Contract amount exceeded by 17.9%* |
*In order to deliver the Transport Strategy a three day a week staff member was increased to full time to ensure delivery of all Strategy actions.
Glen Eira Debates 
December 1, 2011 at 12:59 PM
This is real head scratching stuff. The only dollar figure mentioned is grants from Vic Roads so nothing is revealed about “costs”. The one bit that shows exactly how much this report is total bullshit is the “Job requests actioned and completed” where the taget says “100% of responses to customer requests”. All this means is that people who ring up and complain get a Dear John letter back in 5 days! If they’ve had over 4000 questions or complaints then how many of these were really “actioned” and something positive was done and were the complainants happy with the “solutiions” that council maybe did? The Auditor General has already said how woeful the Community satisfaction Survey is so I don’t need to say anything on that. How about the 50 “consultations” and the community being represented by Vic Roads and all the other departments. That one really gets me laughing my head off. What they should do is just ask people what they think of the lousy traffic and parking in all of Glen Eira. But then they couldn’t publish those results it would be so, so embarrassing.
December 1, 2011 at 2:14 PM
Anyone who has had any dealings with the Traffic Department is going to feel nauseous reading this. Concerns raised related to traffic volumes and speeding and parking are just met with no, no, no. This department goes out of it’s way to ignore or fob off residents. Their skill in doing this is the only way the Traffic Deparment managed to achieve their 100% of responses to customer requests completed within five days.
Moderators have you ever considered setting up a top ten spin category then having a monthly award for it.
If you do, I am sure the spin that rates “reviewing the customer satisfaction survey” as proof of responsiveness will get the gold.
December 1, 2011 at 9:57 PM
“reviewing of the customer satisfaction survey” as proof of responsiveness certainly gets my vote in the December Spin Stakes. Especially as Council has merely reviewed then used the wpb file (Waste Paper Basket for those not in the know). Not one word on follow up in recognised hot spots or potential hot spots, just a we looked at it.
If this is the best Council can do then residents should be seriously questioning what the h*ll this Council is doing/thinking.
December 1, 2011 at 2:33 PM
Yep, Anon 1, this is definitely head scratching stuff. These folks are just not listening to residents because they are too busy consulting with others to consult with the ones that actually live here and are forced to live with the results of their bad decisions and/or lack of action.
I am particularly impressed with the statement about “Resolving residents’ parking concerns through careful readjustment of the critical balance between parking supply and demand”. As one of those residents whose parking concerns have recently been so resolved, may I ask when is Council actually going to enforce the restrictions – even when residents complain nothing is done. Quite frankly, erecting restricted parking signs is not a good performance measure unless it is backed up with regular parking inspections.
December 1, 2011 at 2:50 PM
Efficiency, competency and imagination are not words that would describe the Traffic Management & Engineering Department. Centre Rd shopping strip is the perfect proof of this. First erect concrete blocks that reduce the amount of car parking space. Next watch how all these blocks are continually hit by cars. Next erect poles with red stripes on them so that people can see where the blocks start so they won’t ruin their cars. I’m sure that this has added immeasurably to public safety and cost almost nothing to do and then redo. For statistics on safety improvements -well, that’s all secret and certainly won’t be published in Best Value Reports. We just have to take it in good faith that such things are real outcomes.
Surveys from supermarket shoppers as to the reconfiguration of the car park there would for sure give a lie to claims of safety improvements. Cars now enter and leave via blind spots and if you just stand there for 15 minutes and observe, then the near misses rise to the dozens. Great innovative, out of the box design and engineering traffic management. It certainly deserves another bogus award.
December 1, 2011 at 2:50 PM
What a hoot this Best Value Report – Traffic Management is. Come on moderators – ‘fess up, you and your cronies put this hilarious “Best Value Report” together.
Council wouldn’t/couldn’t be stupid enough to put this together and present it to the world wide web. Burke or Newton are definite spin masters bu even they would surely have drawn the line on this one.
December 1, 2011 at 4:10 PM
“The service achieved a rating of 58%. Whilst this result is lower than last year, it is in the top bracket of scores for “all Councils”, which ranged from 53% to 61%”
58% is a very marginal pass and is a decrease from the previous year.
Top bracket for “all Councils” – I’d suggest the result would be worse if the comparison was with “other comparable metropolitan Councils”.
Any Glen Eira resident will be willing to discuss the appalling parking and traffic management in this municipality (which is worsens on a seemingly daily basis). But alas they are not the people the traffic management dept. wants to talk too because they only want to complain or request traffic management do somehting.
December 1, 2011 at 7:56 PM
I’m wondering if there’s any correlation between the 133 traffic counts and only 14 capitol works carried out in a year. That’s less than 10% of road bumps, and maybe even signage is included in this ‘capital works’. It becomes a guessing game as council probably intended. You can’t trace the costs, or the jobs, or the figures, so everything is meaningless. Someone told me that over a million dollars was spent for one roundabout and synthetic grass. I don’t regard this as “value for money” – not when it could mean that heaps of other streets are chocka block with parked cars, narrow traffic lanes and no speed signs.
The Act says that council must be responsive to community needs. Answering letters in 5 days doesn’t qualify as responsive nor undertaking 50 (really?) consultations. What they do with the information is the issue. From my experience the action that follows is a not so polite letter and thank you very much. You’re down the bottom of our list. I guess it will take a few people getting killed before this council really starts delivering on value for our money.
December 1, 2011 at 9:48 PM
News flash from the MRC Trustees meeting…as expected, the MRC are not agreeing to build a park in the centre of the racecourse. Councillors Pilling, Lipshutz, Hyams and Esakoff look like idiots for approving C60 but at least Mr Newton has his job for at least 2 more cushy years. Unbelievable…
December 1, 2011 at 10:07 PM
Dear Anon,
the community would be most interested in reading more re this. Please expand on your comment, or email us at gedebates@gmail.com
December 3, 2011 at 1:04 PM
One question is who is responsible for the choice of “metrics” in the Best Value Reports? Council, by reappointing Andrew Newton, is appearing to endorse current practice of his administration.
The Glen Eira Planning Scheme, on traffic matters alone, contains dozens of statements like these:
* Ensure residential development in commercial areas does not contribute to traffic and car parking problems.
* Ensure that the traffic impacts are adequately addressed when considering new residential development.
* Ensure that where new development places an increased burden on infrastructure it contributes to the upgrading of infrastructure.
* Residential development takes account of established traffic characteristics of the area and does not add to identified traffic conflicts.
* Large scale developments be accompanied by a Traffic Impact Report.
* Developing local area traffic management plans and parking precinct plans to control the effects of parking and traffic intrusion in residential areas.
* Implementing local area traffic management changes in existing areas in consultation with communities to improve safety and amenity and discourage use by inappropriate traffic.
Yet when assessing new developments they are universally ignored, certainly *never* quantified. At least Jeff Akehurst has identified himself as one that believes council policy should be ignored if it otherwise might limit the size and scale of development.
All of this flies in the face of available evidence. For a start, I don’t acceptthat having cars do U-turns because they can’t exit a street due to congestion to be an acceptable existing traffic characteristic. Likewise it should be an unacceptable traffic management strategy to rely on cars driving down the wrong side of the road to get around cars unable to complete their turn ahead. Both of these though “our” Traffic Management Unit have endorsed in their advice to support more development.
Council doesn’t model traffic flows, doesn’t have a definition for “congestion”, has no clue about queue lengths and average queuing time at places of congestion, paints white lines on streets past the doors of cars parking on the street due a waiver of parking requirements for new developments and calls it a bike path. Under its policies there has been a steady increase in accident rates at streets such as Belsize, Shepparson, Morton, Kokarrib and and Arrawatta in Carnegie. Since council has a policy of encouraging more cars into its Activity Centres, it has a moral obligation to do as its policy says and improve safety and amenity. This could be, for example, by introducing more signalized intersections. According to policy, developers should be contributing to the cost.
But getting developers to contribute to costs is anathema to our current council. They instead vote to remove Development Contributions Plan Overlays. They waive non-compliance with ResCode despite explicitly acknowledging in GEPS that current infrastructure is inadequate, aging, and in need of capital renewal to modern standards. They argue that State Government should invest elsewhere, rather than support an increase in residential density in Glen Eira. Repeatedly government representatives have explained that there is *no* money available to eliminate grade level crossings here. Brighton is more important.
Ultimately the reason why the Best Value Report is such a poor response to the legislative requirement is that it simply doesn’t help Council make informed investment decisions or improve services. Why our councillors are so meek on the subject is something they should be compelled to explain following their recent endorsement.