Scope of the Activity

This Principal Activity includes Council’s support, regulatory and other functions not covered in the other Principal Activity areas. These include corporate services such as record keeping, information technology and management of Council’s finances as well as those activities that Council is required to undertake such as the assessment of new developments.

Strategic issues

Council faces competing demands on its resources. With such a large area, a widely spread population, high population growth and a huge seasonal influx of visitors, Council is not able to meet all of these demands and must plan accordingly.

Over the last 10 years Council has also had to address significant changes in legislation, structural reforms and work practices, as well as take on additional responsibilities from the State Government. A major issue affecting all of our services is that the population is distributed over a large number of settlements covering a huge area. There are many community organisations which focus on areas such as sports and other community services. Council appreciates the interaction and assistance of these groups.

Council has now become a provider of a diverse range of services, where we interact with a large number of stakeholders.

Setting priorities on demands is one of the most important challenges facing Council.

Proposed Responses

Council proposes to meet the challenge in a strategic way through t he development and implementation of Cityplan and to develop and better integrate its supporting plans and strategies.

Further impetus will be given to embracing the principles of Ecologically Sustainable Development throughout the organisation.

A greater focus is proposed in developing more effective working relations with government, the community and others.

Improvements to customer service are proposed through a range of continuous improvement measures to be targeted across the organisation.

Greater emphasis will be given to marketing the breadth and significance of Council’s activities and achievements through the development and implementation of a communication/marketing strategy.

(See over for more detail on these and other proposed tasks)