Council & Business
10 July, 2023
New development officer critical for community plans
A community development officer to be appointed at Central Goldfields Shire will be critical to local community plans gaining traction, according to a council report. A review of the shire’s community planning has identified a range of obstacles...
A community development officer to be appointed at Central Goldfields Shire will be critical to local community plans gaining traction, according to a council report.
A review of the shire’s community planning has identified a range of obstacles to implementing community plans and offered suggestions for a way forward.
Four years after community plans were developed for Bealiba, Bet Bet, Carisbrook, Dunolly, Majorca, Maryborough, Talbot and Timor, Central Goldfields Shire has completed a Community Planning Review Project.
Community leaders interviewed for the project noted numerous challenges in delivering the 10-year community plans including lack of community leadership, people not being aware of community plans and council staff turnover.
“Council turnover is high — every time you have to explain things to a different person, you have to keep going over things very [sic] and over again,” one respondent said.
Personality clashes, volunteer burnout and not having support from council to implement the plans were also among the challenges identified.
One of the review’s key findings was that community awareness of community plans was low.
Reasons for this included “COVID disruptions”, community plans not being widely promoted and people “assuming council would lead community plan implementation”.
Councillors unanimously supported a council report which called for a range of “small wins” to be implemented and the development of a partnership model for future community planning work.
The “small wins” are “projects that don’t require funding and might be implemented by the end of 2023”.
Included on the “small wins” list was creating a regular grants bulletin and “delivering a communications campaign about the great projects already achieved and the great benefits of community planning”.
“While a range of small wins might be facilitated within the existing budget (through changes in behaviour and process), it’s clear that any real traction and change depends on the appointment of a
Community Development Officer,” the council report concluded.
The report said this appointment was planned for the second quarter of the 2023/24 financial year.
Councillor Liesbeth Long moved that council note the Community Planning Review Project’s key findings, endorse the small wins for implementation and support the development of a partnership model to progress community planning.
“I can only hope that this partnership will be strengthened in the future so that our communities can thrive and become the best they can be, no matter how big or small,” Cr Long said, before the motion was passed unanimously.
The Community Planning Review Project involved council staff reviewing community plan projects of three other shires, engaging with councillor-nominated community leaders and discussions with council staff involved in community planning work.
On May 31, “a total of 31 community leaders, councillors and council staff attended a workshop to explore how to get better at community planning”.
The community leaders engaged for the project were not named in the council report.