Council is Improving Access and Transparency

Friday, June 19, 2009

Starting immediately, council is changing the way it holds its public meetings by changing the locations, type, structure and timing.

“Since our election, council has been working to improve transparency and strengthen community engagement. We want to open up our decision making processes, we want to be transparent and we want the community to be more involved,” said Mayor Frank O’Connor.

“We’re also increasing the time available for the public to access council reports by changing our reporting timetable. From now on reports to council will be available on council’s website by 12 noon, on the Thursday prior to the meeting,” he said.

“Our current meeting cycle is confusing and it’s difficult for the public to differentiate between meetings. To simplify the structure, we’ll be holding two Ordinary Council meetings each month (on the second and fourth Mondays) and a Statutory Planning Committee meeting on the third Monday,” he said.

“This cycle allows council to formally make decisions twice monthly (plus delegated decisions at the Statutory Planning Committee) and if necessary we can defer the consideration of an item and request further information at the next meeting to be held in two weeks time. This will help us move quickly on items that need to be resolved quickly,” he said.

Council is also providing residents with more opportunity to attend council meetings by rotating the location of the Ordinary Council meeting between the St Kilda Town Hall, the Port Melbourne Town Hall and the South Melbourne Town Hall. All venues have disabled access.

Council will also be removing obsolete agenda items like ‘correspondence’ and the ‘CEO report’, while adding a new item relating to the ‘declaration of conflicts of interest’.

An advertisement will be placed in the local newspaper advising of council’s newly adopted timetable. Individual advertisements will also be placed for each meeting. Council’s website will also be updated to reflect these changes.

Enquiries: Anna McNaughton, Communications Officer, 0466 142 423
or Mayor Cr Frank O’Connor on 03 9209 6431