What it is that Consultants LG Services Group call a 90% success has all the hallmarks of a self-serving assertion. Dive down in this consultant firm's 'marketing' and you'll find a lot of 'managerialism' on display and not much placemaking – local governances prime function. It is no real surprise to see this given that Local Govt. Management (LGM) in the most part wherever it is and is essentially committed to the status quo as it delivers large and generous executive salaries to executive managements.
President Ronald Ragan said of the 'status quo' that quite simply it is Latin for the mess we are in. A truth well spotted!
More to the point, the status quo's messiness is embedded in Local Govt's executive salaries that are supposed to mimmic those on offer in the corporate world. However, they do not by necessity reflect the level of accountability in play in the corporate world. A non-performing executive in that world who raises the ire of shareholders will soon be held to account in relatively short order. Not so in most Local Govt jurisdictions unless there is extreme dysfuncionalism on display that just cannot be ignored.
Ratepayers attempting to hold their Council's management to account will most likely be bureaucratically set upon to the point where those in various professions just cannot afford to engage with local governance. A trickle down of this is that citizens who otherwise might seek to serve in a representative role avoid doing so.
The evidence seems to point Local Govt. executive management being privileged and enabled to presume to speak for others they know nothing about or care to know. Here discrimination isn't just what is said, what is thought, done, and felt. It is most often what is allowed. In Launceston there is a history of avoidance relative to community consultation albeit that the word are mouthed.
Ratepayers suggesting that the device of Citizen's Juries/Assemblies and the disinclination to allow anything of the like is made abundantly clear. This 'citizen engagement strategy' is in relatively wide use elsewhere and aruably successfully. However, what seems to be unwelcomed is openness of the strategy, the attendant transparency and accountability. Moreover, the strategy enables 'experts' within a community otherwise disinclined to engage with Local Govt are more inclined to do so given that they are allowed 'a voice' otherwise denied them.
Tasmania's Local Govt Act has two provisions designed to make a GM/CEO expediently accountable and more effective but in the time of the city's three recent Mayors they have been permitted to become misused and arguably perversely so. the two provisions being referred to are SECTION 65 and SECTION 62/2 [Link].
That there are disenchanted ratepayers watching on as all stops are apparently being pulled out to ensure that with the impending appointment of a GM/CEO their fears seemingly are being compounded. The Mayor is mouthing platitudes and reading between the lines there are indications that various Councillors are being sidelined. The real treat is that the status quo is to be preserved and ideally compounded.
Arguably, representative 'democracy' has been perverted albeit that in a 21st C sense it is long past its use-by-date given that 'direct democracy's' time is upon us. That is so given all that digital technology can facilitate. Belief in that serves one well and one's own view of reality is the most dangerous of all delusions. Moreover, only 'the public .. the represented', can force its representatives to reverse their abdication of authority that the law allows but is inhibited is stress laden. It perversely shapes their places, their placemaking, their sense of place in discordant ways.
It is alarming that 'civic management' has become so convinced they're the best at anything when none of us are. What is most alarming is when cultural landscaping is regularly, serially and surreally taken over/away in deference to self-serving managerialism.
IN THE EXAMINER: Council CEO recruitment costs 'far outweighed' by benefits
By Joe Colbrook
Updated January 15 2024 - 8:44am, first published January 14 2024 - 5:00am
All councillors have had "the opportunity" to be part of the recruitment process for a new chief executive officer. File picture
All councillors have had "the opportunity" to be part of the recruitment process for a new chief executive officer. File picture
The cost of hiring a new chief executive officer at the City of Launceston council will remain under wraps for now, although mayor Matthew Garwood said the benefits "far outweigh that investment".
Consultants LG Services Group, who claim a 99 per cent success rate at filling executive vacancies, have been hired at an as-yet unknown cost to scout the new chief executive.
The mayor said using external consultants was standard practice, and strongly recommended by the Auditor General in a 2021 review of local government.
This said "not all elected members have the experience or the skills required to conduct effective recruitment ... or performance assessment processes" and external consultants meant correct procedures were followed.
Cr Garwood said the total bill to ratepayers would no be known until the end of the campaign, but finding the right candidate was worth the money.
"The benefits of utilising experts in local government executive recruitment far outweigh that investment, as noted by the Auditor General," he said.
"The chief executive officer role is a position of great responsibility. It requires skillsets in strategic planning, good governance, policy creation and expertise in a wide variety of state and national legislation.
"The right appointment will put our city on a positive path for the future."
The chief executive is the only council employee appointed directly by councillors, and Cr Garwood said "all councillors have had the opportunity to be part of the recruitment process".
The Examiner understands four councillors attended a briefing held by the agency, while others had the opportunity to provide feedback in writing.
////////////////
Council starts nation-spanning search for its new chief executive
By Joe ColbrookJanuary 11 2024 - 4:00am
The City of Launceston council has formally started the process to replace chief executive officer Michael Stretton, who is headed to Hobart City Council. File picture
The City of Launceston council has launched a nationwide, potentially international, search for its new chief executive officer.
Sydney-based LG Services Group - which claims a more than 35-year history of executive recruitment, and a 99-per-cent success rate - has been contracted to scout for the new head of the council's administration branch.
Mayor Matthew Garwood said councillors were seeking a 'can do' leader who would fill a critical role at the council.
"The position requires oversight of the day-to-day operations of our organisation, collaboration with a wide range of stakeholders and community members, liaison with other tiers of government and much more," he said.
"We'll seek candidates from across Australia, and even globally, but we'll also welcome applicants who already work for the City of Launceston in a different capacity and who may be wishing to take the next step in their career."
Information about the role and how to apply is available on the council's careers website, at www.launceston.tas.gov.au/Council/Careers.
The deadline for applications is 9am, February 12 and the successful candidate will be appointed by councillors per the Local Government Act 1993.
The vacancy at the City of Launceston council came after outgoing chief executive Michael Stretton announced he would leave the council in November 2023.
He was first appointed to the role in 2017, and councillors unanimously endorsed his reappointment for another four years in July, 2022.
Mr Stretton will start as the chief executive at Hobart City Council at the end of January.
No comments:
Post a Comment