We must congratulate council for finally placing a document in the public domain which clearly reveals the shortcomings of its processes and performance on community consultation, plus highlighting the entire mess that is Advisory Committees. The ‘evidence’ we are referring to comes in the form of the Community Consultation Advisory Committee Meeting ‘minutes’ from the current agenda items.
The opening paragraph reads: “The Committee noted the final printed version of the Glen Eira Community Plan. Committee members agreed that the final printed version was a high quality document and that its layout and design appropriately highlighted Council services and community needs”.
COMMENT: We find it strange that the phrase “final printed version” is repeated twice and that “high quality” would seem to largely pertain to “layout and design”. This sounds very much like the “awards” that council wins for its Annual Report. That is, nothing about CONTENT, but all about the bells and whistles of presentation. The Community Plan itself is therefore not endorsed as ‘high quality’ – merely its format, and overall look. Not exactly providing us with the full ring of confidence! We also remind readers that one of the community reps on this very committee felt compelled to put in her own submission on the community plan. Again, hardly a ringing endorsement of “high quality” if a committee member comes up with ‘recommendations’ for improvement!
Then comes the real nitty gritty – the admission that not everything is perfect. Note this sentence – “The Committee suggested that the following improvements could be incorporated into future Council community planning processes”. The suggested ‘improvements’ are:
- “Council to adopt a longer community planning process to provide more time for the development of the community plan”. Does this mean that the plan was rushed? That time given to integrate community feedback was insufficient and deficient?
- “Ensure future plans articulate links between consultation outcomes and actions contained within plans”. Implied criticism perhaps that what residents had to say was basically ignored? That the action plan had no logical connection with community aspirations – that it was set in concrete from the beginning?
- “Improve induction processes for community representatives joining Council Committees, specifically, indicating that decisions are made by consensus in the Committee and that the Committee is advisory only to Council.” A really fascinating sentence in that we have to ask: does this apply only to the Consultation Committee or all Advisory Committees? If, on the one hand it applies to all committees, then we are in the territory of hypocrisy, lack of due process, inconsistency, and plain old humbug. What does consensus mean? And why is this possibly only applied to the consultation committee? In the same agenda there are the minutes for the Arts & Culture Advisory Committee. Motions, including names of movers and seconders, plus whether the motion is carried is included for this committee as well as the Community Grants Committee. The Environment Committee, which also happens to have community reps DOES NOT include formal motions but ‘Recommendations”. The names of mover and seconder are provided (and they are invariably councillors), but no outcome as to voting is recorded. Instead, we have an item curiously labelled ‘action’. Our conclusion can only be that where committees have community representatives on them there is NO FORMAL MOTION AND VOTE RECORDED. Only those committees which consist exclusively of councillors and officers are afforded this right. Of course such committees are a closed shop so the formalities of a motion and vote are permitted What this highlights for us is the failure of this council and its councillors to ensure two basic democratic rights – community reps on all committees and more importantly, that community reps have full voting rights. It also makes a sham of the minutes themselves when we see no consistency between the reporting formats for each committee. The minutes can and have been doctored at will. There is absolutely no logical and valid reason why formal votes should be taken at some committees and not at others. Furthermore, it is incumbent that specific terms of reference are set for each committee (we have been unable to find such terms for the consultation committee) and that definitive processes are set down for the tabling of minutes. These are all matters that must be included in the Local Law meeting procedures.
- We must concede that our favourite recommendation for improvement is: “Committee minutes to be distributed to all members of the Committee prior to adoption by Council.” In other words, it is pretty obvious that committee members did not get to see (and therefore) comment on the minutes before they appeared in council agendas! Officers were the arbiters of what appeared in these minutes not, we presume councillors, and most certainly not, community reps!
It now remains for things to be set right via the total amendment of the Local Law.
We repeat what we have previously stated. If these councillors are really interested in transparency and accountability and proper community consultation, then the following must happen:
- All advisory committees to come under the umbrella of the Meeting Procedures of the Local Law
- All advisory committees (with the exception of Audit Committee) include community reps
- All advisory committee minutes be consistent in reporting, format, and voting procedures
- Community reps have voting rights on such committees
Without such changes community consultation will remain the sham it currently is and which has finally been conceded by these minutes. Over to you councillors!
Glen Eira Debates 
November 11, 2012 at 9:54 AM
There’s another item in the agenda related to consultation. The open space contractors. The report talks about submissions and not tenders. I interpret this to mean that a few favourites have been asked to put in a quote instead of it being an open tendering contract. I would have thought that if we’re finally into getting an updated open space strategy that the consultation committee would have been the first cab off the rank to discuss how consultation is to be done. This will be the same old stuff all over again I fear. A top down approach where some well paid consultant produces the desired findings and then put out for consultation which will be totally ignored. Meanwhile we’re being sold the bullshit that this is going to be fair and people will be listened to.
November 11, 2012 at 11:39 AM
For people interested in the issues and recent history of open space in Glen Eira, I suggest reading an article by Glen Eira Environment Group:
http://www.members.optushome.com.au/sspj/open space.htm
Some recurring themes keep cropping up: the use of consultants to prepare strategies that are then ignored; bureaucrat resistance to improving our environment; the use of asset sales to mask the true state Glen Eira’s finances; the disempowering of the community to have an effective say. Every dollar spent on consultants is also a dollar not being spent on improving the open space situation. Despite this, external consultants are necessary, and they should not report to the bureaucracy who have fought so long and hard to create the current situation.
There’s something pretty bloody broken with the way we are governed if strategies are prepared roughly 15 years apart, only to have each of them ignored. For a start, they should be continuously revised, improved, tracked, monitored, reported on. One crazy Council policy has been to remove open space from areas that they target for high density development. I share Anonymous’ cynical view about what the outcome will be of this exercise.
November 11, 2012 at 2:05 PM
Master plans we need to point out are either “flexible” or extremely rigid, depending on what particular political purpose they might serve. Item 9.8 of the agenda focuses on Caulfield Park lake. The original request for a report asked that “Measures required to reintroduce native species in the pond and
surrounds” be investigated. The response? and we quote – “Caulfield Park master plan was endorsed by Council in 2001 and there are no
recommendations in the report to introduce native species in the pond and surrounds”. So that’s it! Immutable for all time! Once set in concrete it must stay in concrete despite being out of date by 12 years or unless officers decide that it needs changing. That’s how things work in Glen Eira!
November 11, 2012 at 8:42 PM
Its been an ongoing war between the bureaucracy and Council. Oppose the bureaucracy and as a councillor you will be denied the free publicity in Glen Eira News and other media outlets that build your brand. Support the bureaucracy and suddenly your requests for reports, desires around changes to council policy, concerns around ward matters are doable. Margaret warned me that that’s how the game is played. Few councillors have the courage to withstand that kind of pressure, so we see failure to take action upon council resolutions as “not a priority”. Worst of all though is when councillors accept *without question* what officers put in front of them.