In Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, the line “there is something rotten in Denmark” has become synonymous with issues surrounding poor governance, poor management, and inefficiency in public organisations. In fairness to the City of Port Phillip, they are not alone in receiving public frustration at council inadequacy. Across the inner metro, the message is clear: local government can do much better than has currently been demonstrated.

Poor Performance Borne Out by Statewide Survey

In the 2023 Local Government Community Satisfaction Survey by JWS Research, on 18 metrics, metro councils were given an average rating of 62%. This rating compared favourably against the CoPP that saw its overall performance decline from 64% to 58% during the period 2022-2023.

If we look at the 10 worst ratings given to the City of Port Phillip, each metric declined over the period. Interestingly, these areas all sit within the core mandate of Council under the loosely termed “Rates, Roads and Rubbish” and also within the overlay of community expectation of good governance, transparency and well understood communication.

Of further interest was the rating assigned to waste management which received one of the higher ratings of 67%. The survey was done before the change in waste management contract and the subsequent poor findings by two independent reviews. One could presume that this rating will fall sharply in any 2024 ratings when undertaken by the independent group.

Clearly from the above, the City of Port Phillip can do much better in core services.

What do the Surveys Tell Us On What Residents Want?

One of the ongoing concerns by residents in the CoPP, is the priorities set by Council and its elected representatives.  If we look at two surveys by Council Watch and Residents of Port Phillip [RoPP] an interesting similarity emerges on what priorities, core issues and current perceptions are important to residents. This correlation can be summarised once again as a reinforcing expectation around the loosely termed phrase “Rates, Roads and Rubbish.”

Much of what can be summarised in the above table also confirms the poor findings in the Local Government Community Satisfaction survey rating and deteriorating result of the City of Port Phillip over the period, in its overall satisfaction rating.

If we delve further into the Council Watch Survey, it becomes very clear what residents want more of and want less of from their Council in terms of allocation of resources.       

WHAT WE WANT                                                                                   WHAT WE WANT LESS OF

Once again, we see that "Roads, Rates and Rubbish" (read as core council remit) dominate resident expectations. Leading on from this data it does not take much research to ascertain who of our Councillors are in touch with community expectations and those that have activist agendas removed from the sensible centre where most of us belong. Those with activist agendas are prepared to utilise council money to spend in areas not in line with what the general cohort of resident’s wants and demands. Similarly on those areas that residents demand further attention too, the CoPP has a very poor overall rating compared with other metro Councils. This was confirmed by an additional two independent surveys highlighting the priority issues and concerns expressed by residents.

Is the CoPP Keeping a Tight Reign on Cost and Driving Efficiency?

Staffing

Once again, we can look to comparative data from other inner metro Council’s collated by Council Watch to build an understanding in this regard.

Data on average employee costs covering 22 Metro and inner-city councils, provide concerning conclusions for residents. Pertinent points include:

• Average salary costs of $129,174 ay CoPPwas the second highest.
• Staff per 1000 of 8.19 at CoPP was the second highest.

When compared against neighbouring councils, the City of Port Phillip is an obvious outlier. What could possibly justify such a high differential between CoPP and our immediate neighbours?

The high average salary cost within the CoPP leads to a very possible conclusion of a top-heavy staff structure. Another area of concern is that the CoPP in 2023, increased the number of employees to 975 (6% increase) which leads to the following questions:

Where are the efficiencies? Ask yourself, have services improved with this higher staff ratio to population? What’s the real cost of the large exodus of fulltime CoPP workers to working from home? What is the turnover rate of employees in CoPP and why? Where is the productivity dividend through greater use of technology? Are the new positions over 2023 skewed to where residents have said they want more money spent or less money spent on? Is our Council captive to the Public Sector Union?

Growth in Expenses

Expenses over the last 10 years have also grown ahead of inflation. On the face of it, when you also consider the lack of an efficiency dividend, a conclusion could be a laxity in council spending and excessive spending on non-core functions and priorities.

Growth in Revenue

Growth in revenue has increased over the period 2016-2023 of 28.3% or an average of 4% per year. The increase in revenue from both rates and non-rate (fines/fees etc.), more than the growth in expenses, has led to a $149 million increase in current assets. While the CoPP can be marked highly for the large current assets on their balance sheet, it has been borne largely by rate payers and higher fee collections.

In Summary

The real rub, borne out by the three surveys, suggest that excessive spending by the CoPP and corresponding rate and revenue gauging is well overshadowed by:

• Poor performance, governance, and direction
• Poor internal culture
• Poor value for money
• Overreach on activist agendas by certain Councillors and office bearers and
• A failure to deliver to a satisfactory level on key priorities as expressed by residents.

The CoPP suffers from a trust deficit within the community. Lack of confidence in management and decision making is well entrenched within the minds of residents. Moving forward, there needs to be an honest conversation and a mea culpa. Where the Council has made mistakes and or shown not to have delivered well, then own it and deal with it. Importantly they need to take the wax out of their ears. Listen and learn - that’s where real leadership begins.

Now is the time for the CoPP to embark on a detailed internal review with some serious soul searching backed by a less political focus by some of our Councillors. Council needs to refocus on their core mandate and not be distracted by woke and minority only supported agendas.

Maybe the opening premise in their review should be:

“The residents do not work for us. We the CoPP, work for the residents”.