Range and Level of Services Community Panel

In 2013, the Council of the City of Greater Geraldton formally approved the implementation of a Community Panel to deliberate and recommend the Range and Level of Services the City should provide. The Community Panel had the following task: recommend to the Council the community desired range, level, and priority of services to achieve minimal rate increases, or reductions, within the budget limitations set by the Council’s adopted Long Term Financial Plan.

The Council agreed to seriously consider all recommendations, implement them where feasible, and where not, clearly community the reasons to the Panel and the broader community, but first, seek to understand the intent of that recommendation and work with Panel members to find other ways to achieve it. However, Council would retain the power of veto.

The 40 member Community Panel who demographically represented the Geraldton community met for eight full Saturdays from February to March in 2014.

The Community Panel was a joint undertaking by CGG and Curtin University Sustainability Policy Institute. The #changesCGGcommunity Project Team who delivered the workshop series comprised of a cross departmental team of CGG executives, a range of managers, coordinators and project officers totalling 28 and two CUSP members.

Workshops featured presentations by managers on the services they provided which including detailed descriptions of what each service involved; the extent to which that service was discretionary; and what each manager thought could be cut back on or embellished upon.

By the end of the workshop series Panellists deliberated their preferred direction for each service and made recommendations to the City to either increase, decrease, or keep the current level of service unchanged.

Their final report and recommendations were presented to the Mayor at the Ordinary Meeting of Council on 22 April 2014. The City Executive Management Team was then given the report to review and implement the recommendations in the development of the 2014/15 budget.

Read the Community Panel Range and Level of Services - Recommendations and Report.

View the video inviting the community to have their say on services here

View the video here