Tara Murray caught up with two of the Whittlesea administrators, Lydia Wilson and Bruce Billson, to chat about their time so far, the future and the legacy they want to leave.
How has the first six months been with COVID-19 presenting a number of scenarios that no one had planned for?
Lydia
“It has had an amazing impact on our ability to have that direct contact with all the staff across the organisation, but also really importantly we haven’t been able to get out and about and be visible in community, meet with key agencies and community leaders, meet with residents and businesses. We have tried to compensate as much as we can and the three of us are actively involved in internal and external advisory committees. It’s amazing what you can do with technology, but it hasn’t been the start we would have really liked.”
Bruce
“It hasn’t been what we expected and not what we anticipated and certainly requiring a bit of innovation to stay well informed and well connected. Trying to connect with and build a regular professional productive rapport with the team and the staff that has been difficult. We have been able to include many staff in our briefings and dialogue. I like to see and feel the physical environment and get a sense of the technical advice in the context of the landscape. That can be difficult.”
Lydia
“We did a comprehensive public report on our six months at council. We felt it was terribly important to go on record of what we have done in our six months, what are some of our priorities… We’ve just highlighted a bit of a road map about some of our key priorities.”
What background have you had with the Whittlesea community before stepping into this role?
Lydia
“I’ve got extensive local government background and being a CEO at three councils. I’ve had a lot of experience across municipalities and also there’s a number of issues at Whittlesea which cut across local government in general. The critical item that we have got up to speed on is some of the levels of disadvantage and socio demographics and clearly being a growth council.
Bruce-
“I’m a former local government executive and had 20 years in federal politics. In terms of community engagement representative type work, I feel experienced about that, but not so specifics of the Whittlesea contexts.
Lydia
“We have been really clear and on the record, that we’re not just here in Whittlesea for the governance and decision making role. We certainly don’t want any of our residents to feel disenfranchised because they have administrators. We’ve already developed some strong linkages with our members of parliament and we’ve gone out really strongly on a number of key advocacy campaigns. One of the key things going forward is community consultation and engagement.
Bruce
“We don’t wake up each day as administrators knowing the history and reason we were appointed. It’s not just about getting Whittlesea sorted. We’re about enabling it to be sensational. We want to… Not just get things back on track, but a really positive forward looking agenda that people look at and say I’m so chuffed to be part of the Whittlesea community.”
With community consultation, is there a big focus on that because Whittlesea council has been known as a secretive council previously?
Bruce
“We’ve seen some of the numbers because there is that survey and some of the numbers aren’t where they need to be. Community consultation and community engagement, we are very clear and so is our incoming CEO, we have to lift that performance. And there’s another side as well, do people know what the council is on about? There are expectations around engagement of greater equality, greater impact and frankly the city having a really receptive highly tuned ear to what people are expecting of it and what they’re views are.
Lydia
“Over the last five years the community satisfaction survey results across a number of areas whether its customer service, consultation and engagement, advocacy and general performance has been declining, as it has across a number of councils, but we actually don’t feel that is good enough. We feel that we have to really try and address people’s perceptions of the overall performance of the council. We would like to really engage community participation, and we’ve already started to establish really strong links with community agencies.
Bruce
“With those partnerships we can be a crucial player, or we might be the primary ball carrier. It’s a meaningful form of engagement as well, how do we optimise those relationships for the benefit of the community.
Lydia
“We do say we are a very ambitious group of administrators. It’s not just the legacy of open, good decision making and governance, it’s that plus a lot more.
Coming in having COVID-19 at the start of this has changed the direction of what you have looked to do the first six months?
Lydia
“The resources, the policies, the initiatives we are going to be taking in the business sector, emergency relief, the funding commitment that goes with it, has been a huge focus. I’m really pleased to say we haven’t dropped the ball and the organisation has continued to perform at a really high level. The issue we have is that we have to finish off on the response and we know and even with the latest stats and impact on our community and local businesses it is quite profound.”
Bruce
“The organisation has been incredibly adaptive and to that degree there were lots of moving parts to try and bring our best possible response. Without COVID you would be moving into a place where the foundations had been laid and thinking where to from here now you’ve got a lot of things that have had to be adapted and adjusted to cater for these extraordinary times. The focus has been on livelihoods.”
Lydia
“The delivery rate of the new works program was still running at roughly 86 per cent and there are some of the flagship major infrastructure projects that we can just not afford to lose time on.”
You’ve both touched on it, but what is the focus of the administrators the next four years and what you want to achieve in that time?
Lydia
“In our report we’re really clear on the road map moving forward and we have a number of key priorities in the report. We want to achieve a high performance culture at Whittlesea and also a theme around rigours of financial management going forward. We’ve already talked about the community satisfaction results, that whole area is a key plank. We believe in the organisation that we need to provide that real strategic leadership and there are some areas that we would like to focus on.
Bruce
“We have ambition and aspire to leave a really meaningful legacy. For us, what does success look like? Our success looks like our citizens absolutely chuffed that their home is Whittlesea.”
