Earlier his month the association questioned the justification for council’s decision to lease 700 square metres of prime office space in Bega for five years at a cost of $125K annually, plus an estimated $100K in fit-out costs.
While council hasn’t confirmed the number, the association believes the new premises are intended to accommodate upwards of 60-90 council employees (subject to Covid19 limits) while significant renovations to council’s administrative building in Zingel Place are undertaken.
The association is concerned that council could have housed the same number of employees at the Regional Learning Centre in Merimbula, remembering that one of the primary justifications for its purchase some five years ago was to accommodate around 80 council employees.
To better understand its position,
the association wrote to council on August 20th, 2020, seeking basic information relating to staff deployments at council offices, both pre & post
Covid19 restrictions.
While it took a number of attempts,
council eventually acknowledged that it could not confirm the actual numbers of its staff in attendance at each council office on any one day & the maximum number of staff that can be accommodated at each office in accordance with
Covid19 restrictions, while also confirming that for council to provide details of actual staff numbers in each office location prior to
Covid19 would require a formal
GIPA Application.
If council doesn’t know what staff are in attendance at its offices at any given time, how can it meet its OHS obligations, how can it effectively operate emergency procedures, how can it know who is working or not working, how can it effectively manage its payroll obligations & how can it meet its primary duty of care to its employees?
The association can only wonder if the same circumstances might prevail at every council across Australia & what a shambles that would be.
And how can state governments issue mandatory instructions to restaurants, hotels, bars, hairdressers, gymnasiums & every other type of business on how they should account for people on their premises at any one time but not be able to require the same standards for all government offices, including councils?
And how could council possibly know what its additional office space requirements were if it did not maintain such basic information?
Council’s apparent inability to maintain adequate internal controls suggests that its office administration, including basic staff management, is in a shambles & prompted the association to submit a formal GIPA Application for all of the requested information on October 16th, 2020.
Council was able to confirm the
maximum number of staff it could allegedly house at each of its office locations subject to
Covid19 restrictions, suggesting that it could currently provide suitable office accommodation for around two thirds of its workforce.
Needless to say the association remains sceptical about council’s claims & its real ability to adequately manage its workforce & its genuine office needs given its obvious lack of effective administrative controls necessary to do so.
And finally, council has suggested that the maximum number of staff that it can currently accommodate in the Regional Learning Centre is only four, making a mockery of its original stated pre-Covid19 intention to house up to 80 employees at that facility & suggesting that council must be seriously considering the sale of that facility.
A real shambles indeed.
John Richardson
Secretary/Treasurer
Bega Valley Shire Residents & Ratepayers Association
Tel: 0264945669
Email: secretary@begavalleyshireratepayers.asn.au
Website: http://www.begavalleyshireratepayers.asn.au
