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00:00:00 Mayor Stewart: Yep, you ready? Yep. That's great. Speaker 6: That's Mel and Tom? Yep. All good? Ready, Jay? Councillor Jurisevic: So are we. Afternoon everybody and welcome to the Services and Organisation Committee, the first meeting for the new Council. Welcome to the new Council. Thanks. Before we begin, I'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land upon which we meet, the Kabi Kabi or Kabi Kabi people, and pay respects to their Elders past, present and emerging. No apologies, all in attendance, all in the room. No presentations, deputations. We'll get underway with item one, the Audit and Risk Committee membership. Speaker 1: Okay, good afternoon Councillors. This report is recommending just a couple of minor changes to the Audit and Risk Committee policy, the Charter. The Audit and Risk Committee meets quarterly and there's the, normally attended by the, our external auditors, which is Queensland Audit Office, often by our internal auditors,
00:01:00 and then our Councillor members and our external members. So just to give you a bit of background. So the changes that are proposed here are to remove the Mayor as being a position on the Committee and instead putting a Councillor as being that representative, and also recommending an increase to the sitting fees. Our sitting fee has traditionally been quite low. And it hasn't changed over the last couple of years. And what we're recommending is an increase to what is recommended in the actual document. So that's $800 per meeting for the Chair, who is an external member, and then the other external member at $600 per meeting. Councillor Jurisevic: And just to clarify for those that may be watching online, what was the previous remuneration for? Speaker 1: Oh dear, that was $300 per meeting. Yeah. Yeah. And look, with our external members, one of our members is a local person. The other one was a person from Brisbane. So the travelling and expenses and time were never charged on top of that.
00:02:00 So that was the standard sitting fee. So we're recommending an increase to those fees to recognise the time that they actually spend in the meeting, but also their commitment and time that they spend reading minutes, agendas, et cetera. Councillor Jurisevic: I understand that's in keeping with standard reading, right? Speaker 1: It is. It is. Just to give you an idea, like with Sunday Council, for example, which is an extreme up north, their fees are $1,200 plus travel and accommodation, but they are a bit more remote. Gympie, on the other hand, was around the $300. It was actually $200, but I'm not sure if they're looking at increasing their fees this year. So just to give you some idea from a comparison point of view. I didn't obtain any further comparisons. I'm sorry I didn't have the time, but at least it gives you an idea of where we sit. Councillor Wilkie: Yeah. So Deb, I notice that's not in the recommendation. So are you comfortable if there's going to be a change in the sitting fees for that to be part of the recommendation as well?
00:03:00 Councillor Jurisevic: It's mentioned in the report. It's mentioned in the report. Speaker 1: Yes. It's mentioned in the report. It's not in the charter. No. No. No, it's not. And a lot of charters don't actually contain the sitting fee. I might have to take some advice on that, Brett. Speaker 6: It's something that we should put into the recommendation. We can. . Councillor Wilkie: I only say that because we're, in agreeing to this, we're also, in essence, agreeing to an increase in the sitting fee. In the fees. In fees. Yeah. Speaker 2: Yeah. Councillor Wilkie: So it just makes it more explicit. Okay. And the question I have, just a clarifying question. Yeah. In the change to the policy about removing the mayor and let's say two councillors, two councillors still includes the mayor. Speaker 1: Yes, it could. That's right. And that's mentioned in here. More. Yeah. It doesn't exclude the mayor.
00:04:00 Councillor Wilkie: Maybe the mayor and one of the councillors. Speaker 6: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. . That's what we're looking to do. . Councillor Jurisevic: I'm glad you brought that up, Mr Wilkie, because that's actually something I clarified with the CEO in other committees. Speaker 6: The mayor is required to be on those committees. . Yeah. And I think that's what I've done back for the standing committee, which is the other committee. The mayor must be on the other committee. But the board committee is not standing to do that. So it's not a mandate. I don't find it really nice to do that. . I'm hoping it is the case, but it's not going to happen. Councillor Jurisevic: . So I tell you, the standing committee and the mayor are required to be a part of the Councillor Lorentson: sitting fees.
00:05:00 Yes. I recognise the degree of expertise that these external committee members and chairpeople bring to the audit risk committee. I just want a little bit more clarification as to why in the past the position's been unpaid and now, and it seems like an odd time to be wanting to introduce a pay increase given that we're in a COVID-19 situation. Why the change of policy? And why now? Given that in the past it was recognised, as I think your words, was a commitment to the Noosa community. And they were actually not being paid as a sitting fee. They were only being reimbursed for travel expenses. Speaker 1: No, we were actually, excuse me, but councillor, they did actually receive a sitting fee. Councillor Lorentson: $300. Yeah, $300. It actually says that it was not paid. I've sort of understood. It says other external members currently receive a pay increase.
00:06:00 Yes. To cover associated travel and other related expenses. Other than the expense reimbursement, the positions are unpaid and confirm the external member's commitment to serving the Noosa community. Speaker 1: My understanding of the way that this was written by the governance advisor was the amount does cover travel and related expenses. Those related expenses can also be a person may have to take time off work to be able to do that. The expense reimbursement for positions are unpaid and confirm the external member's commitment to serving the community. It probably doesn't read as well as it should. No, it doesn't read as well as it should. Councillor Lorentson: So it does include their workload. Yeah. So it should be a sitting fee then. Speaker 6: What happens at the moment, I guess, that $300 fee? Yep. Yep. And that's been in place since about 2014, is that right? Yep. And why now is that the other thing we're doing here is that we're willing to go out and recruit new members. Yep. What we've been trying to do is to have succession planning in place for our external members.
00:07:00 So when we appointed originally in 2014, we got two very good external members. And after five years, it's often a good idea that we're going to have a new member. And so the intent was that we'll change over one of our external members last year. We've had one of the associates from KPMG, he's done five years, he's a centre. We've recruited a new person who's come on board last year and we'll need to recruit a new chair this year. The other third will change over. When I went out last time, about 12 months ago, I recruited quite a few candidates to raise. So we're about to go out again for a chair. And I thought it would be appropriate now to get our rates more in line with the market
00:08:00 now. So that's the why now. But you're right about the COVID issue. It's an interesting time. Mayor Stewart: It's an odd time to be introducing a 100% pay increase. Yeah. So it's a 300, it's gone from 300 to 600 there. That's irrespective of what it's for. Speaker 1: That's the difference. And the chair does take on some additional responsibilities in his role in forming the agenda, in evaluating the success of the committee on an annual basis. So there are other things that the chair takes on and that recognises that the chair is being, that's why it's been recommended for $800. Mayor Stewart: What was he previously on? Speaker 1: The same. Mayor Stewart: The same. The 300. Everyone was on 300. So he's on 500. Okay. Councillor Jurisevic: Well, given the questioning by Councillor Longston, would it be more prudent to wait until we have a new chair to consider the fee increase? Speaker 6: Well, the question is on the recruitment, whether you'll get better recruits who are paying more market rates. Councillor Jurisevic: It's understood that as part of the process, when they come on board, it's $800 as opposed to now. Speaker 6: Unless I have that authority, I'm not going to be able to .
00:09:00 Councillor Lorentson: It is. Absolutely. Brett, can I make this suggestion? Yeah. Can we perhaps introduce a local content style approach to recruiting a chair? And maybe that will impact on how much we pay the chair. Surely there's someone in the community or within a 50K radius that can fill the position. Again, I think we need to be conservative when paying fees. Again, I respect the degree of expertise these guys bring to the conversation, and we need them. But I think plan A should always be, let's go local, and let's look at getting value for money. Speaker 6: Yeah. When we recruited, just over 12 months ago, we ended up with a pretty good field, actually. We put our hand up. I remember getting down to about the last three or four. Two or three of those were from outside.
00:10:00 It was a fair way ahead of the fourth one. So that's why the chap we've got at the moment is an audit partner at one of the major Brisbane accounting firms, and very experienced in local government. Former CEO of the council, but done audits of local governments for 20 years or so. So we actually get pretty good value out of someone like that, who can come in and give us advice and a clean set of iron. Councillor Jurisevic: I think the other thing is being remote as opposed to being with ... They look without that local perspective, and it is a clean set of iron, without being influenced from being in the region. I do think there is some benefit to having an external person. Speaker 6: It is a tricky one about the perception now in the middle of COVID, and do we look at fees or whatever. Yeah, it's tough. And if we weren't doing a recruitment, I'd probably say, let's just hold it for the moment. But I'm happy either way, whatever the council wants to go. But on balance, I'd probably suggest that we do it so we can get the best person. Councillor Wilkie: But can I just ask the question again, Deb?
00:11:00 You mentioned you had some comparative pricing. Could you have those figures again, please? Speaker 1: Oh, look. And these are ... So Gympie was $200 with their sitting fees, but I don't know if they have reviewed them. And somewhere like with Sunday Coast, they're a lot ... Yeah, they are, but they're physically removed, so $1,200 and then plus travel and plus accommodation expenses. On top of that? Yeah. Councillor Wilkie: And is that just for a member or the chair? Speaker 1: No, that's for a member. Councillor Lorentson: For the member. Frank, I actually had a look and did some research. There is actually a formula, and so I don't think the amount that we're proposing, $600 and $800, is unreasonable. My question is, do we look local and timely? They're my two issues, but the formula's really quite good, so it just factors into additional work. So if it's an hour and a half ... And it's all formula-based, so if they're here at a sitting meeting for three hours, you add an hour and a half, so whatever their rate is. And so if these guys are getting paid $500, an hour $750 is actually reasonable.
00:12:00 So I respect where the amount's coming from. Again, timing, and let's explore local options. Speaker 6: I agree with you in terms of timing. Local, for me, it's about what's the best person, where they come from, and that's ... It might be Brisbane. It might be local. It might be whatever. But timing is a tricky one. Mayor Stewart: I do think there's some merit we have for someone out of the region with fresh eyes or a really different approach. Speaker 6: Yeah, and what we did last term, actually, a couple of times, we actually invited the CEO of Gimpy to come down and sit in on our meetings as well. And I did some of theirs, where you go and have a look, and fresh eyes can go, hey, what are you doing it this way for? And that sort of fresh eyes can help. Councillor Jurisevic: That's also an opportunity for them to take stuff away for their benefit as well. We can really share that. Speaker 6: Our current chair is local, Scott Williams. He's the chair currently on the business round table for the Business Mentors Network. That's Scott. So he's chaired for six years. He's excellent. But again, his term's coming to an end. And he was good enough.
00:13:00 His term was actually due to expand in August. And I've asked him to extend until the end of the year. So we have, you know, we can go through the recruitment period, not in the middle of COVID. Councillor Wilkie: In terms of governance, is there a committee that has a greater role to play in the integrity of an organisation, like Moorstown Council? Speaker 6: Well, the council itself, I guess. Councillor Wilkie: The council meeting is probably... Well, this governs all the internal processes and protects against fraud and... Strategic risks. Strategic risks. You've sat on the Ordinaries Committee. Councillor Jurisevic: You've got a... Councillor Wilkie: Yeah. Good. Very comprehensive. As a boy, I don't understand the... I've never had a meeting that went shorter than four hours. Yeah. Mag time. You're going to love it. You're going to love the detail. You're going to really love it. Speaker 6: Yeah. Councillor Wilkie: So, look, maybe we'll just go through... Speaker 6: Let's see what the council's thinking in relation to the issues. Councillor Wilkie: I'm happy to support the eight and three, but... Councillor Jurisevic: I've got one...
00:14:00 Yeah. I actually... Amelia, can you circulate that information you've got on the formula? Yeah. Councillor Lorentson: I've played around and found some information. Yeah. Councillor Jurisevic: The question I've got is, with regard to the payment to the Chair, do we... And in the interest of transparency and openness, do we state this anywhere else apart from in the... Is it clearly visible of what an ordinary committee chair or member would receive anywhere else in council if we didn't include it here as a part of the recommendation or in the chart? Speaker 6: Yeah. It'd be in the detail of the budget show, but it's a pretty micro... Yeah. Again, you wouldn't have that specific. So, from a specific perspective, I take Frank's point. Yeah. Maybe then if we... When we look at it on Monday at general committee, whichever way we want to go, we actually include that in the recommendation. Yeah. Councillor Lorentson: All right. Deb, in relation to periodic rotation that's mentioned, I think, on page eight, can we include periodic rotation of councillors to achieve, again, the same goal to maintain independence
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00:15:00 of a committee and introduce new perspectives to deliberations? Can we include periodic rotation of councillors to achieve, again, the same goal to maintain Councillor Jurisevic: I think we do that as a matter of course anyway, and that's why you're coming on, but I've just done my two years, so that's why we have by default done that. Speaker 6: And I think that when we get to the appointments report later on in the agenda, when we look at committee chairs as well, I think it's a good thing to change those every two years as well. Fantastic. We haven't moved around enough, but the life has gone out. Mayor Stewart: The change from the mayor and one, like the cross out of the mayor and one to two councillors on the basis that people would have more of an opportunity to be on the committee. Yes. Speaker 6: And otherwise you're stuck on there for four years.
00:16:00 Yeah, I think it's a short interest, yes, it allows a bit more rotation and get more councillors across that. I think it's a good thing to do. Councillor Jurisevic: So there's no other questions? I'll move it. We'll move a referral to general committee for further consideration. Do I have a seconder? I'll second. Thank you, Clare. Mayor Stewart: So all in favour? Councillor Jurisevic: Thank you. We'll refer that to general committee on that. Further discussion? Speaker 1: Okay. Councillor Jurisevic: Item two, amendment to councillor's acceptable request guideline policy. Speaker 1: Okay. So council originally approved an acceptable request policy in 2015, so some time ago. So it was appropriate to review the policy. But also in line with the legislative changes and identified that in the very first section of the report, the changes following the Local Government Electoral Act, including stage two of ACARA and other legislation amendment act. So I did, that was part of the reason. The other was that our previous policy referred to our old corporate plan and our old themes
00:17:00 and our old vision. So it really was timely to review it. Normally when we put a policy up for amendment, we would give it to you and track changes, so you can easily see where the changes have been made. Now, I didn't in this case because it looked extremely messy. So I decided to do it as a rewrite. But what I did distribute to you yesterday is just what the previous version was so you could see the difference. But I'm quite happy to sort of go through the old policy and give you a bit of an idea of what has actually changed, if you'd like to. It really comes down to the changes in the legislation, which are the last few points under the section of the Act. That's how I read it. Councillor Jurisevic: As I read it through, I went, oh, remember what we had before? Because this just follows what we've been following as a result of Belcarra. Speaker 1: Yeah. It's the changing, the conditions around the timeframes for the CEO to respond to a request from a councillor.
00:18:00 And the documentation of the request, it's those finer points. The last three. Councillor Jurisevic: Anybody need any further clarification? Mayor Stewart: I did, just from my point of view, because the old legislation said the mayor may give a direction to the CEO or a senior executive employee. Yes. But over here, it says the mayor may give a direction to the CEO. However, it must not be inconsistent. Oh, no, sorry. It cannot give a direction. That's right. Speaker 1: That's the changes. Speaker 6: That's the changes in the legislation. Yeah. I was just thinking of that. Mayor Stewart: Yeah. Speaker 6: So that's good for me to know. Mayor Stewart: Yeah. Speaker 6: Definitely. So probably, I think last September, they changed that again. So that now, that's the only person that the mayor can give a direction to as a CEO. Yeah. It's going to be a bit broader than that. Councillor Lorentson: Can I ask, Deb? Yeah. Can we, this is a council staff-driven policy. This is a council-driven policy. A council staff-written policy.
00:19:00 Excuse me. Yes. Yes. That includes these changes. Yes. That's right. Registered changes. That's right. I had a look at the council request guidelines and also council employee code of conduct. Yes. And there were some parts of that that I would like included in the policy. I just think that at the moment, the policy doesn't help me as a councillor. No. I think it's important that I have to be able to discharge my duty of due care and diligence. That in order for me to exercise due diligence, I'm going to need more than a request of the nature of a simple question that can be verbally responded to. I'm going to be needing more than information that either the public or a more senior member of local government is given. I'm going to be needing more than information that either the public or a more senior member of local government is given, a lot more advice. I'd like advice, including copies of legal advices, data counsel documents.
00:20:00 And under the council request guidelines, a councillor may request, and I am quoting, council employees to provide advice to assist the councillor carry out his or her responsibility and that the CEO provide information such as records and documents relating to Noosa Council. Yes. Employee Code of Conduct, references made to advice given to elected officials that council employees have a responsibility to provide such relevant advice as requested by a councillor and in doing so must ensure that such advice is thorough, and I repeat, thorough, responsive, objective, independent, apolitical and impartial. I'd like that extended, I'd like that added to what we can, what we are allowed to ask for. At the moment the request is for the nature of a simple question that can be verbally responded to.
00:21:00 What concerns me about that is that a simple question that may be verbally responded to opens the floodgates to workplace disagreements. Council staff advice, in my opinion, must be communicated in written form to carry legal status and to also avoid misunderstanding genes and more importantly to avoid denial. So I really would like to maybe refer this to general meeting and debate it a little bit more. Councillor Jurisevic: Do you want to outline, in writing before that meeting, to start, what the nature of the changes that you think that need to be made? Yeah, I just... In reference and so you can locate the work... ...to the other councillors so we can have a look at the nature of the changes you're proposing? Councillor Wilkie: Are you proposing that every request has to be in writing? Every answer has to be in writing? Councillor Lorentson: Yeah, I do. Otherwise, the other option I have is, are you okay for us to record a verbal advice?
00:22:00 I would like it in writing, yeah, I would. Councillor Wilkie: Or be allowed to record the verbal advice. So if we want to go and talk to a council staff member about what's happening at such and such... Yep. ...and they give us a quick feedback about what's happening, it's...they have to put that in writing. Councillor Lorentson: Totally, because if we rely on that information and then...if we rely on that information and it's misrepresented, it's he says, she says. So I would like, you know, rule number one in business for me is put it in writing. So I'm happy...I'm happy to say that this conversation took place and send you an email, just so that I have a written record of the conversation, never...in case it ever comes to bite me in the bottom. Mayor Stewart: So there was... Deb, sorry. Yeah, go ahead. I was going to say, look, just looking at the difference, the differentiation from what the old policy was to the new... Yeah. ...I think, I mean, where I sort of questioned it, and it's probably not to the extent that Amelia's talking about,
00:23:00 but I did question it, was council employees to provide advice to assist the councillor to carry out his or her responsibilities. I mean, I guess, I mean, advice, carry out his or her responsibilities is the key there, and it's changed from that to the request is of the nature of a simple question that can be verbally responded to. So I understand that they're... Yeah. ...with...I understand what Amelia's saying, but I also understand there's constraints with that, in that there's time constraints, and it takes a bit, you know, it takes an informal conversation and makes it very formal. Yeah. Yeah, I understand that. Yeah. But I'm wondering maybe if we could, you know, definitely I think we're going to have to take it to general, but there might be a happy medium where we can come back to something like there once was. Councillor Jurisevic: Well, I'd suggest that, you know, you're provided writing if requested. I mean, there's, you don't need an inviting every single time. Councillor Lorentson: Yeah. Not every single time, but if something is complex, if something is complex in nature, or something that we are going to relay to a resident, it needs to be in written format.
00:24:00 Otherwise, it carries no legal status. Councillor Jurisevic: I think that's the point, is that upon request, if you require an inviting so that you've got that supporting documentation, well and good. Okay. We just have to ask a question. We get a yes or no answer. Yeah. Councillor Lorentson: So, what I'm asking is that actually gets included in council policy. Got that, got that part of that. Speaker 6: So, I think, I think it comes back to the context of what the scale of the issue is. So, it's a, and I clear my catch up almost every day when I come to the office. We don't sort of document everything we talk about. No. Because it's just a quick catch up. Sure. And things like that. So, it's about when it, when you need to have something inviting and whether it's easier to do it verbally. That's right. And at what point does that cross over? And that's a bit of judgement on behalf of both the council and the staff member about when we get that, reach that point. I think the risk is if we try and specify too much one way or the other. Yeah. And how do we get that? And that's, it's a matter of judgement. Yeah.
00:25:00 Councillor Wilkie: One at a time. Just one at a time. Yeah. Mayor Stewart: Yeah. Maybe it could be at the request of. So, if I catch up with Alison and say, hey, how you going? Where's the local charity? Can I come along? I don't need that in writing. But if Amelia goes down and talks to someone and needs that or relies upon that information, she can say, can I have that information? Councillor Jurisevic: Can you follow up, can you follow up that conversation and just document that for me? What does the policy say about this? Yeah. Councillor Wilkie: Is there anything in this, this policy that, that precludes a council of asking for advice in writing? Councillor Jurisevic: No, I would have thought, I would have thought that. Councillor Wilkie: So do we. No. And to take Amelia's point on board, do we need to make that explicit that the council has the right to request advice in writing? Councillor Jurisevic: I would have always thought that was implied anyway. Yeah. We need to make that explicit to. Mayor Stewart: There's nothing excluding it. Maybe we could form a line there. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 1: What, what I would probably say, if I could just share this, share this with you. As Brett was alluding to, there's, you know, requests are different. It might be as simple as, you know, what's the progress of the concreting, the concreting of the path. Yeah. And, and it might be a verbal response that's, that's easily given. There can be a situation where a staff member might be asked a question by a councillor
00:26:00 and they may have some information, but they may not have all the information. And to be able to respond properly to that councillor's question, it may need to be elevated to the manager or someone further. And if it requires some investigation or time, which takes the officer away from their normal job, then the officer has to account to their manager for what they're doing as well. So, you know, there are those sorts of considerations as well. What the policy does provide for that, you can request the information, you can go through the CEO and there are timeframes with that, especially for the more complex things, or you can go, or if you went to a director, for example, depending on what the issue is. So this, the policy does provide for, to be able to go to the CEO, but it, it has to sort of cover everything. So it can be a very basic question that might be well within that officer's ability to be able to answer, but it may also not be. And, and at that point, then what the, what we're saying is, well, that officer should
00:27:00 then elevate it with their manager or director to be able to, to be able to provide an appropriate response. So. Councillor Jurisevic: My full process on this, I mean, if you ask a verbal question, you expect a verbal response. If you wanted your writing, you ask, you ask for your writing and expect a written response. That would be the way that I would, or, look, thanks for that. Can you send me, you know, look, I appreciate that there's a bit more information there than I can. Can you, can you get that to me in writing and, and follow up in that way? Just a simple verbal request for it to be followed up in writing. But I mean, the, the way, the way that I view it, if you get the staff, if it's a verbal request, it's a verbal response. If it's a written request, I, I get an email back or, or, or something like that. But a counsellor has the right to request an advice in writing at any time. Absolutely. Absolutely. Of course. Of course. No, no one would, would, well, Fiona, can you put that in writing so that I've got it so I can respond to that? Fantastic. Councillor Lorentson: I'd love that included. Speaker 6: I'd love that included.
00:28:00 Yeah. Mayor Stewart: Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 6: Exactly. Councillor Jurisevic: And I guess managers and directors are more okay with the need to hang on. I probably need to write that down to make sure that all the detail is true and correct for you rather than just give it to you here so that you, you understand it fully. Speaker 1: Okay. All right. So we will revisit that. Councillor Wilkie: So apart from the changes for the Mayor, there's, there's really no changes in terms of the way that counsellors would interact with staff as a result of the new legislation? Speaker 1: No. No. As I said, it's, the only change that could be, that's coming is there's a bill before Parliament at the moment which looks at counsellors giving directions to administrative staff, but that's something we will have to revisit once it's actually passed. It's not necessarily under this policy. It talks... Councillor Jurisevic: Can you correct that elsewhere with regard to the Mayor being up to direct the new staff? No. That's coming. That's coming. It hasn't happened yet.
00:29:00 I thought we'd done something on that one. Speaker 1: No. We reported the changes that were coming, but they haven't actually, with everything going on, they've been held up. Speaker 6: There's a bit of legal fiction going on at the moment. Yeah. Sample Clare, talk to Cathy, you know, PA to get stuff done. Theoretically, you can't, you can't, you can't, you can't, like, pop me a letter. Or go and find a copy of this letter. So the state is looking at just clarifying that that can happen in terms of the electoral representatives and having staff. Yeah, but that's not a major issue. Councillor Jurisevic: All right, so Amelia, do you want to move that gets referred to the general committee? Yes, please. Speaker 6: So if you want to just in terms of clarifying, Deb, to work up some extra wording in terms of what that would be like. Yeah, that would be fantastic, Deb. And then we could get that on. Councillor Lorentson: Can you have a look at the Council Code of Conduct and also the Council Request Guidelines? Because there was just a little bit more meat in those documents. Speaker 1: We could refer, without duplicating those codes or sections from those things,
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00:30:00 we could make reference to the Council Code of Conduct and the Request Guidelines. Speaker 6: So then you want to call up that in case that document changes, right? Yeah. Councillor Jurisevic: And if you think there's any need to amend any of it, you've got the right as a general committee to put those recommendations forward or those amendments forward for consideration. Fantastic. Speaker 6: So we'll do a further report on Monday, which will just incorporate those changes into an updated document. Speaker 1: Thank you. Speaker 6: Okay, that's all right. That's great. Councillor Jurisevic: Once you've seen the agenda, you'll see what the proposed changes are. If you think there's any further required, you've got the right to make those amendments. Thank you. Councillor Lorentson: Okay. Councillor Jurisevic: All right. Seconder? Frank? Mayor Stewart: Frank. Yeah. Councillor Jurisevic: There's been no further discussion or questions. All in favour? Thank you. Refer to the General Committee. Item three. Speaker 1: Okay. So. I've just lost it on my screen. You're all right. I'll wait for you, Joe. Where are we at? Councillor expenses. Speaker 6: Page 700. Councillor Jurisevic: There we are. Expenses reimbursed on individual decisions. Okay.
00:31:00 Speaker 1: So this policy is a policy that is routinely reviewed with new council. So it sets out the support and assistance that council provides to councillors. And there are some options within this. For example, in relation to. Vehicle, a vehicle allowance or claiming your mileage. So you do have some options within this. And the changes in this one are actually highlighted to give you the benefit of seeing the differences there. Speaker 6: This is when the legislation requires new councils to revisit within six months of the beginning of the plan. So every council. Councillor Jurisevic: And the loss of the allowance with regard to the LDMG. Sorry, the changing there. I'll rephrase that. It's fine. It's because we had a change in the facilitation of the phone system that we were using. That's right. With regard to that communication. And the way that that. Just for your benefit in terms of where do we. Mayor Stewart: Yeah, I saw that, but thank you. I wasn't sure why.
00:32:00 Speaker 1: Yeah, and the way that that was charged, it was actually charged to the Telstra account of the mayor. So when we ceased using that, then we needed to take that away and it needed to be provided for. Councillor Jurisevic: Yeah, but they'll have to charge you that. No, no. Councillor Lorentson: Probably the only thing I'd like to add, Deb, is under council policy, professional development and representation, just in keeping with transparent and open governance, we should probably state what that amount is for the community's benefit. I think it is stated in there, isn't it? Oh, I couldn't find it. Councillor Jurisevic: Further down. Councillor Lorentson: With regard to discretionary funding. Oh, fantastic. Sorry. Yeah, $1,500. Councillor Jurisevic: In the end of discretionary funding, $1,500 per year, which can be carried over. For one year. For one year. For one additional year. And the professional spend is at the discretion of the mayor and the CEO and the budget. Councillor Wilkie: Great. I've just got a minor question. Under seven administrative support, councillors will be provided with the following access
00:33:00 to suitable hot desks at the Tewantin office. Yes. Is a hot desk a shared desk, whereas, we're actually a bit of a mall. Just a bit of a mall. No. Our desks are actually, we've actually got individual desks. Speaker 1: Yes, yeah. What is the hot desk? Well, that is, the concept is that a person could use any one of those desks, but I know that within their, within the room that they have been allocated out, because people also like certain positions within the room, so. Well, we're essentially not operating on any computer. Yes, yes. So, that's what's referred to there. As well. Councillor Jurisevic: In fact, I only saw that the other night. Someone suggested, oh, aren't they used as hot desks? No, no, I always use desks. Yeah, yeah. Speaker 1: The only other people that use those desks are in a disaster situation. You might have the communications team working for that room, for example, but otherwise. Councillor Wilkie: A shared beyond the councillor. Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Councillor Wilkie: That's the only exception. Speaker 1: That'd be the only exception. Other than that, you know, the else uses that room. Councillor Jurisevic: Yeah, mine is often used when LDMG is in, and most of our councillors' computers are
00:34:00 used when LDMG is in, and we've got media in there, for example. We also facilitate radio checks and all the rest of it in there, and the like. It's not just wholly and solely at our, for our use, so it doesn't get used by other staff at times. I'll move it. Thank you, Clare. Any further questions or discussion? All in favour? Thank you. Thanks, Ted. Thanks, Eric. Thanks, Ted. Mayor Stewart: Thank you, Elena. Thanks, Ted. Councillor Jurisevic: On a floor, it's the councillor representation of various boards, external organisations and working groups. I noticed there has been an update from when we first discussed it. There's some councillors realising that the amount of workload that they tried to take on. Speaker 6: Yeah, I think Amelia wanted to get this. I don't think Frank. Joe. She swapped out with you.
00:35:00 Yeah, on the Tewantin. Tewantin, yeah. And also the walking and cycling strategy, I think, the other one. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Jurisevic: Can I just ask with regard to the sports conflicts committees, if the relevant staff member is aware that we're back in that frame, because we weren't being consulted on. Speaker 6: So once this is adopted by council, obviously all the relevant staff, we often will write to the external group and say, you know, Councillor Smith's now been appointed and put you in touch with him. Lots of them. So don't forget how many there are. Mayor Stewart: Yes, yes. Councillor Jurisevic: Yeah, yeah. And there's still others we've already gone through. Do we need to, I said I'll take up your point here Amelia earlier, do we need to state anywhere here what the timeframes that we change over on these are or do we just take that as sort of standard procedure that every two years we'll review this and maybe do a bit of a chopping the change around? Speaker 6: Yeah, it's up to council. Generally, it's good practice after two years to have a look at it and just collect it
00:36:00 and get together and say, you know, who's enjoying this or who wants to share the experience with it. And that's all the committee and committee chairs and some of these. Councillor Jurisevic: So Amelia, do you want to document that such or are you happy that it's the standard procedure that we do every two years regardless? Councillor Lorentson: I just think as a matter of consistency, I'd like it documented. Mayor Stewart: I think two years is a good timeframe. Yeah. Because one year, just finding your feet and getting to know it, especially for us, the new councillors, and two gives you that duration. But then it gives you enough time to actually have a go at other things. It also gives new care. Councillor Jurisevic: It also gives councillors a chance to cross pollinators and get across other committees in that way. Councillor Wilkie: So that would be a point X saying that committees are reviewed, committee positions are reviewed after every two years. Yes. Councillor Lorentson: Or there's just periodic rotation of committee members every two years. Speaker 6: I think that the review process would have to be the way to do it because rotation's difficult. You have to have a process to rotate. Yeah. Oh, OK. Yeah. Mayor Stewart: So review. And I guess if you're doing, like, you're loving the tourism, doing great things there, Amelia and Sam, thank you. Everyone's got their projects they want to see through.
00:37:00 You may want to stay or something. You may not necessarily rotate. Yeah. Councillor Jurisevic: I think to remember here is some of those groups will cease as well. Like the Cooroy. Project. Yeah. Project related. Mayor Stewart: So will sports conflicts. Will. Councillor Jurisevic: Sports conflicts are ongoing. One like the Hitland Playground one will cease once the Hitland Playground's been completed, for example. The Tiwara. The. River Street. River Street. River Street will likely end. So there are some there that will cease and others that will come over time as a result of project changes. So we'll also have an opportunity then to, you know, to change or to take on new roles or see roles diminish over time. Mayor Stewart: OK. Councillor Wilkie: I'm happy to move that. OK. Councillor Jurisevic: Councillor Wilkie. I'll second. Councillor Lorentson's seconding that. Any further questions or discussion? No. Speaker 6: With that change, that's what I was clarifying, Mr. CEO, just to make sure that we haven't done anything that doesn't need to be referred to the General. I wouldn't have expected so, but away we go.
00:38:00 Councillor Jurisevic: Item 5, Community Disaster Response and Recovery Grants Program. So Kerry's online? Kerry? She's somewhere behind me, she's on mute. Speaker 2: Yes, I'm here. Hello, Kerry. Hello, and I've also got Alison on line as well, in case there's a technical question that she might be better, more appropriate for her to answer. So, good afternoon, Council. So this report proposes a small change to our community grants for a disaster response and recovery grant. It is a program that is part of the city's monthly grants program. Which is not something that we have had in the past.
00:39:00 And the proposal for the 19-20 financial year is to allocate a remaining amount from the budget to allow a quick response grant round to go out by the end of June. To be able to meet the immediate needs of those organisation that are struggling, who are struggling with mental health issues, food and water. It's particularly to meet the needs of community organisations that have not been able to receive funding elsewhere and have had a significant impact on their ability to raise revenue. To date, funding provided to community organisations from either the federal or state level has been very much aimed at those organisations
00:40:00 that have staff through the JobKeeper program. But even in that space, the staff have to meet particular criteria, which is often difficult for them to meet. So business to provide some support to those community organisations to help them with what they currently pay. Happy to take any questions or comments. Councillor Jurisevic: Keri, we're only looking at the remaining grants funding that hasn't been expended at this point in time. Speaker 2: That's correct, Joe. So there was an amount of $27,000 that through the timing of the budget process last year in our grant rounds has not yet been allocated. I'm assuming. Councillor Jurisevic: Sorry, I'm assuming at some stage there will be a further report or request to Council for funds going forward as to what the community may require?
00:41:00 Speaker 2: So as part of the 2021 budget process, we will be looking at what support we provide to community organisations. So through that budget process. And Council staff are looking at that at the moment in terms of the... Ordinary 2021 budget process, or grant allocations, and what we might propose then for 2021 and so on. Councillor Jurisevic: So in essence, is it just a tide over for the next six to seven weeks until the budget is finalised? Speaker 2: That's correct, Joe. So at the moment, we've got organisations that have got needs right now and waiting another three or four months until we are able to get into a new financial system. So we've got a new financial year and a new grant round is a very long period for them.
00:42:00 So this is proposing a quick response where we would go out with a short timeframe, a simple process, because it's only a small grant amount, and then allowing a quick turnaround so that we would only need to get the funds out to them by the end of June. Councillor Jurisevic: Have we had any requests for date from community groups? Speaker 2: No. I'll just throw it at Ali. I mean, in terms of firstly, obviously, we've got community organisations talking to us about what their problems are, the issues they're facing, their dropping in revenue, the issues that they've got with their volunteers. I'm not sure whether we've had specific requests for funding. Ali, are you able to answer that? Mayor Stewart: Yes, we've had specific requests for funding. Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yes. Thank you. That could have been as simple as freezers to hold frozen meals, for example.
00:43:00 Speaker 6: Okay. Just checking Council is comfortable to make that decision on the delegation to keep things moving along quickly and then we'll report back on the outcome. Councillor Wilkie: Yeah. That's good. Yeah. Kerry, could you give us some idea about the acquittal process, what that'll involve? Speaker 2: Yes. So like all of our grant programs, they will be required to submit a form. They will be required to submit a form of formal acquittal. So whereby they need to demonstrate that they've spent the funds in line with what they proposed. So that will be part of our process. So they will apply through SNAIDA grants like we would ordinarily do. And we would go through the same checks and balances, but just in a much faster process because it's a smaller process. So they will apply through SNAIDA grants like we would ordinarily do. So we'll be able to get a much smaller amount of funding and also a much more targeted,
00:44:00 narrow program. So it doesn't require the same level of assessment as, for example, the normal community grants program. Councillor Jurisevic: Thank you. Okay. No further questions, or I'll leave it. Thank you. Do you want a seconder? I'll second. Councilor Lauriston? No further questions or discussion? All in favour? You always have it. It's carried unanimously. And we'll go to the ordering meeting. Item 6, waste management. Wayne? 6.114. That's no way. No way. Here's your opportunity to get to learn about all of the elements, each of the elements of council as they come to us with their either quarterly or regular updated reports as to how operations are going. Questions? Councillor Wilkie: No. Thank you. Councillor Wilkie: Thank you. Why on page 46 or page 2 of your report, materials and services statement of expenses as $330,000 variance between the amount budgeted to be spent on materials and services and the amount actually spent.
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00:45:00 What's, is that a, I know you run a very, it's a big budget, this represents not a huge proportion, but what's going on there? Speaker 5: Proportionally, we did the annual curbside in the first half of the year, so it might be a profiling issue in the budget. We pulled in a lot of that money early and there was some processing of concrete that happened early in the year, which would have been unusual because we didn't do it at the end of the previous one. Councillor Wilkie: So you've spent less than you expected to, yeah. Councillor Jurisevic: We're 5% under budget at this point in time. Speaker 2: Yeah, $299,000 worth of stuff.
00:46:00 Councillor Jurisevic: So is that just being prudent or is there something we haven't completed at this stage? Speaker 5: Some of the expenses come at the end of the year rather than in the first half. Councillor Jurisevic: Not a linear function necessarily? Speaker 5: Yeah, and the, we had an impact on commercial waste because Sunshine Coast Council reduced their charge at the landfill. From about $140 to $120. We had a lot of trucks driving past to go to Nambour, so that reduced our revenue. Speaker 6: Any other questions? The waste transfer installation at Pomona came up well. Looks good. Councillor Jurisevic: Yeah, the resurfacing, yeah. When are we looking at the weighbridge? Speaker 5: Weighbridge is under design at the moment for construction next financial year. Councillor Jurisevic: We've got any idea of a timeframe of when we're likely to be looking at doing that? Speaker 5: Hopefully early in the first part of the year.
00:47:00 There'll be some challenges there in trying to get traffic through the weighbridge while we need to weigh trucks, et cetera, but also put in a new weighbridge. So there's probably some nighttime activity required. We'll build a prefabricated weighbridge office and drop it in overnight. That's the plan. And we'll have to do some bypasses to get the traffic around the site while we're working on it. Mayor Stewart: Can I ask a question? Illegal dumping, I mean, there's been 344 reports of it. How much is a fine for illegal dumping? Does it depend on what's done? Speaker 5: It depends on the volume and what type of waste. Some of the bigger fines that we've issued have been $2,000. Councillor Wilkie: Yeah. Speaker 5: We've had a creative person recently cut down a tree to retrieve one of our cameras that was in the tree looking at illegal dumping.
00:48:00 So we're handing that matter over to the police. We think we know who it is. At this stage, we can't name that person, but they almost cut the tree down. We have to go back and finish the job. Councillor Jurisevic: It's not challenging to find illegal dumpers. They've either got to be seen or leave evidence. Mayor Stewart: Yeah, I was going to say, is it a deterrent, the fact that someone said the cost of the fine is the fact we can't get them? Speaker 5: But if there's asbestos involved, that's a hazardous waste, that can increase the fines. And for a company to dump asbestos, the fines can range up to $60,000. Yeah, right. Councillor Jurisevic: And the real shame with the illegal dumping of all the time is it's ... I saw an example today, a television set that has been disposed of in the bush land, that there is no charge to dispose of correctly at the landfill for resource recovery. And e-waste, e-waste is no charge. Quite often television sets are being dumped, or microwaves, or electronic goods that carry no charge. So it's not a matter of ...
00:49:00 Yeah. Often we're ... We said it, that's the gate clear at the landfill that prevents people from doing it. But really it's people either not understanding that there are no charges associated with ... Often it's only household waste. I mean, there's ... Yeah. That could go in a 240 litre bin for a normal collection. So I don't ... It's strange at times to see why it occurs. Yeah, it's a lot. Speaker 5: The other piece of new information we've received is that the waste levy may be held at $75 for the first three months of the year. Now, that's a challenge for us, trying to vary the revenue statement halfway through the first half of the year. It'll keep us gainfully employed. I'd rather them just bite the bullet and say it's $80, or keep it at $75 for the whole year. Councillor Jurisevic: I guess with the COVID environment, they're hedging their bets a bit. Wayne, page 48. Noted that competing waste collection contractors have continued to withdraw a number of bulk
00:50:00 bin customers. Businesses have spoken to claim ... Businesses we have spoken to claim the main reason is they can be directly billed monthly and have more control over waste costs. Is that not something that we can do from council operations as well? Speaker 5: If we did it across the Shire, I mean sending invoices on a regular basis, the cost of that, we'd need a couple of more accountants just to run that process. Councillor Jurisevic: But truly, that's an e-billing system that goes, instead of sending a monthly invoice. Speaker 5: I'm not aware of any local government that does that. Councillor Jurisevic: But most accounting software is capable of doing it. Speaker 5: Yes. The problem we've got is that we're not able to send a monthly invoice. There's delivery of bins. Clean Away are set up to deliver bins and provide a regular service. They're not really set up to deliver bins and take them away. And that's what would happen if we had an irregular service.
00:51:00 Or we would have to increase our price. Let's say ... Councillor Jurisevic: I didn't get that from the nature of what we're talking about here. This appears to be ongoing. I don't know. I don't know. Ongoing service is being billed monthly as opposed to ... how are we billing them systematically or twice a year through the race? Speaker 5: Clean Away, or some contractors, offer an on-call service. So you can ring up and say, my bin is full, come and collect it. Some people want that service. We don't provide it, nor do any local governments that I'm aware of. Councillor Jurisevic: Okay. So it's a different type of service than the service that we normally deliver. Yes. And that's what you're talking about here being billed monthly and have more control over waste costs. Yeah. That's not the way I read the paragraph. So I didn't understand why that was a hindrance.
00:52:00 But if it's an on-call service, that explains it. Okay. Speaker 5: This particular issue is under discussion at government level at the moment. The waste contractors have argued with the government. About taking over or having the ability to market commercial waste services across all local governments. We have a closed shop. There's about six councils who are like that. We do that because we don't want six contractors going down Hastings Street. Councillor Jurisevic: My understanding was I didn't realise there was an on-call service that they were getting billed for. And I understand the difference. I didn't get that from the paragraph. Okay. That was all. The liquid waste contract. Where are the bulk of the properties located that utilise this service? And is there an opportunity to look at facilitating upgrades to liquid waste services? I mean, you know, are we talking about needing to septic or sewer properties?
00:53:00 Or what other facilitation could we provide for those anti-residential properties in the long term? Because it's supposed to be septic holding tanks and the like. Could we upgrade that? Could we upgrade septic systems or? Speaker 5: They're in un-sewered areas, mainly in rural areas that are un-sewered. And they relate to properties built on land that doesn't have a good capacity for absorption of liquid waste. So. Councillor Jurisevic: So even newer septic type systems wouldn't facilitate? Speaker 5: People have the option of putting in a septic system which aerates grey water onto gardens. But you can't do that with a septic system. You can't do that with a sewage because there are some health issues around aerating that particular product. And also if they're on a slope, that material runs down into neighbouring properties. Councillor Jurisevic: Yeah. But usually there's sort of, the newer systems have some sort of an on-site treatment facilitation
00:54:00 and it's a fairly clean product that's been out watering the ground. Is it something that we could look at, those 80 properties, about maybe facilitating some sort of a. Speaker 5: Some of them are too small to do that. Councillor Jurisevic: Okay. Speaker 5: They don't have the. So there are limitations to the properties in general. Councillor Jurisevic: Yes. And a holding tank is the best. Yes. Means of providing a service to them? Speaker 5: We could look at an audit of those properties and see if there's an opportunity for them to convert. The constraint would be that a lot of them have spent money setting up the system now. Councillor Jurisevic: For the holding tank. Yes. Speaker 5: To go through a process of putting in a new system worth $10,000. I think they'd object to that. Councillor Jurisevic: I was looking at maybe some sort of a subsidy scheme or that to go beyond it. I mean, they're paying an ongoing fee for the liquid waste collection. So over a period of time, the equivalent of that over, I don't know, it might be something
00:55:00 worth. Speaker 5: We'll certainly have a look at it. Councillor Jurisevic: Where else do I have it? There's a street litter place . Oh, waste officers are looking into the program of place damage rusted bin poles and the like. And dog poo dispensers are also being replaced and updated where needed. Is this an opportunity to review the style of dog poo bags that we reduce and see if there's a means of reducing costs rather than the single pools, whether we can use rolls or the like? I mean, is there... Because I know some of them are actually a lesser cost to acquire than the style that we use. Speaker 5: We're currently using compostable bags. Councillor Jurisevic: Sometimes they come in a roll as opposed to... Speaker 5: We've got... Now we've gone to single sheet bags because we had a great problem with people pulling more off than they needed. Councillor Jurisevic: So we've actually implemented a change. We're going to do a different style as part of the... Speaker 5: On some of them. Yes. Councillor Jurisevic: All right.
00:56:00 I think that was the last of my questions. Anything else? No. Oh, yeah. Page... Even I had... Some of the new councillors. Even I had to think about this one. Page 57. Environmental work within the next six months include groundwater review completed in July. It requires close monitoring of groundwater quality in BH32, BH5 and BH33. Tell us what BH stands for. More hole. For the benefit of... Of course it does. Of course it does. I had to think about it for a while but then I thought I mentioned half the councillors around the table. I knew that. I mentioned half the councillors around the table but it took me a while before I... Oh, I know what that is. Speaker 5: Yeah. Sorry about that. I should have put a little exclamation mark. Councillor Jurisevic: Just for the benefit of those of you who need to report what BH stands for and the Speaker 5: new councillors. Everyone knows now. Councillor Jurisevic: That's the last of my questions. Anybody else want anything further? Speaker 5: Have I just... Oh, sorry. Yeah, please. Any questions? Page 56.
00:57:00 Yeah. There's a graph in green which has no figures on it. Yeah. Nice. We got into trouble with LMS for divulging the volumes of gas in the past. So they let us show the graph and show... Councillor Jurisevic: Indicative it. Speaker 5: Relative monthly variations but no data. Because they sell carbon credits on an auction type set up and their competitors would love to know how much gas they might be going to auction. Councillor Jurisevic: So on that one, why the huge spike in March? We're just getting near the question like that. That's like a massive difference. Speaker 5: March, we had some rainfall in March and when we have rainfall and we have leachate generated through the waste volume, that can increase the... The amount of gas that's produced. If you look at January, February, we're fairly dry.
00:58:00 Another reason for that may be, and I can't verify this, we've been putting lateral lines in, horizontal lines. To capture more gas. Councillor Jurisevic: To capture more gas. Speaker 5: Right. And this could have resulted in an increase in the volume. Councillor Jurisevic: Yeah. Compared to the relative volume of gas. The percentage of rainfall we've had, I'd hope the lateral lines are responsible for at least some percentage of it. Speaker 5: Yep. Councillor Jurisevic: The question that that raised for me beyond that was, I know the leachate is captured and it's piped out and all the rest of it. Is there an opportunity to collect methane from leachate before we dump it to sewer? Speaker 5: No. Councillor Jurisevic: No? No. Speaker 5: The... We capture... The methane gas comes off the rotting, putrescible waste in the landfill. We suck that gas out of the landfill through methane wells.
00:59:00 When you look at the liquor that comes off, the leachate, there's not a lot of gas that comes off that. Councillor Jurisevic: If it was stored in some capacity? I don't know. Just a thought. I just had a thought about it. Because I thought... I thought exactly like that, that the water was responsible. The rainfall on that might have been a responsible part of this, and I thought, well, if that leachate is going out with a flow, is there a means of capturing that if it can be stored and cycled off before it's then pumped out to sewer? Speaker 5: We have a tank farm where we capture leachate from the landfill and put it in the tank farm. There are four large tanks. If there was a large volume of gas coming off that, we'd have a significant gas flow coming out. We don't. Councillor Jurisevic: We're not getting... All right. That was... Just a thought bubble with regard to the fluid... Councillor Lorentson: Wayne, the only thing I want to talk about is the activities that you planned for May to December 2020, and included in that are talks and landfill visits with schools and community
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01:00:00 groups. I'd just like to stress the importance of education at a young level, that kids are really our future, and education's paramount. Speaker 5: One of the impacts of COVID has been, we've looked very closely at our whole budget, and we've had to reduce in areas we didn't want to reduce in, and one of those areas has been in the waste education. Now, if council want to revisit that at the budget meeting and increase that allocation, that's a budget discussion. Councillor Jurisevic: Is that only from a practical element, the fact that we can't facilitate at this point in time because of the congregation in an educational-type facility? Speaker 5: There's an interesting thing going on at the moment. Kids are allowed to get on a bus and sit beside each other, but when they get to the classroom, they have to be 1.5 metres apart, and I can't quite understand that.
01:01:00 The schools are resistant to sending kids to the landfill for education. But we certainly are going to try and do as much as we can. The other thing that we're looking at is, we've had a budget cut. We've put on movies and that sort of thing on National Recycling Week, and if we charge for that service, it might be a few dollars or five dollars, I think we'd get a lot of people coming, and that would pay for the service, and we may be able to increase our activity at no cost to Council. Mayor Stewart: I was just thinking how much success you had from July to December last year with all your initiatives, and one of them was this community screening. It was a 300-people sold-out event, and it says paid events. Absolutely. Yeah, so maybe we could do a few more of those sort of things and fund that. Speaker 5: We're certainly looking at a charge service.
01:02:00 Speaker 2: Sorry, it's just Kerry here. Obviously, though, we're constrained at the moment and will be for some time in terms of gatherings, so you can see the roadmap for the state. The three-stage roadmap only allows for mass, and the maximum amount being 100 people, so we don't have the roadmap beyond that, and that will be deliberate by the state to be able to contain those mass events. And make sure that they are very last in line. Mayor Stewart: Yeah. Thanks, Kerry. Councillor Jurisevic: Yeah, we've always got some constraints. Until something like the J reopens, we've got nowhere to facilitate an event such as that. So I gather that's part of the reduction of the education budget in the short term, the fact that we can't facilitate the services at the landfill or in other capacities. Councillor Wilkie: All right.
01:03:00 Anything further? No. Yeah. Just on the recycling and waste education talks, on page 53, you've outlined all the schools and the preschools that have taken part. We've got kids from preschool age year two, three, four, seven, nine. You've managed to get quite a few of them out to the landfill. You say that there's a reluctance, but it looks like you've done fairly well there, up to date. Speaker 5: Emma's done a great job. She's very passionate about waste education. And we've had a very good response from the schools up until COVID. Yeah. Councillor Jurisevic: Since COVID. Since COVID. Speaker 5: And we go to a competition in Maroochie each year. And we weren't paying a fee to enter, but we always won. So we thought we should maybe pay to enter. But our kids are really well educated in the waste sector.
01:04:00 Councillor Wilkie: Does the feedback indicate that the children are actually educating their parents? Speaker 5: Yes. In terms of recycling? Yes. They come home. They go home and they tell their parents what they should and shouldn't put in the rubbish. Absolutely. Councillor Jurisevic: The best auditors we've got. Yes. As I said, I'm really proud that we've finally managed to get this education facility. But the only education facility that was really around was the one at Nambour for quite some time. And a lot of schools didn't get that opportunity under the joint council. But under our own facility, this is the sort of thing that we can do and educate our own life in here. Councillor Wilkie: And Wayne, the graph on page 56, which shows the waste to landfill in tonnes, shows a big decrease from around 58,000 tonnes a year back down to around 40,000. And you're holding, from this graph, you seem to be holding steady at 40,000 tonnes to landfill in recent years. Yeah. Speaker 5: What's actually happening...
01:05:00 Councillor Wilkie: I thought it was a worse picture than that. I mean, that's a high amount. Speaker 5: We're getting more waste through the gate as our population grows and we're a throwaway society. Yeah. We're getting more waste. We're doing better in the recycling area, but it's really difficult to keep up with where we're going in terms of volume. We're trying to keep under 50,000 tonnes at the moment because our waste is going to go up. And that's a challenge at the moment. Councillor Jurisevic: But that's an indication of how well we've been diverting every available stream from landfill that we possibly can. Speaker 5: We do very well in the commercial waste area with concrete, brick, timber. We're up around 90% or better in terms...
01:06:00 Councillor Wilkie: A lot of those recycle loads have doubled since 2014. Yeah. It's a very healthy... And again, if the... Councillor Jurisevic: It's a credit to you and your team. That video that we saw when we had the introduction to waste, where the councillors saw how, you know, even those bulk bins coming through were then re-sorted through again to try and capture what they put out of those. Yeah. Councillor Lorentson: Just one more thing. In terms of education talks, I haven't noticed any visits to the Peregian Village, Peregian Veggie Village and community villages. Some of these places have composting and do composting very well. That would perhaps be an opportunity for education talks for kids because they can actually understand how the most effective way to reduce gas emissions is actually through composting. And maybe that's an initiative as council. We can co-host or co-pay with schools and bring home composting bins and education programs
01:07:00 to the schools. Speaker 5: There was a group down at Peregian that were doing composting and... Councillor Wilkie: Collecting the food waste from the shops. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 5: I'm not sure if they're still operating. Are they, Frank? No. They lost their mention. But we certainly partnered with them and gave them a lot of information. We have an excellent video on how to compost. It was made with... Emma made it with Envirocom, who are an educator in Sunshine Coast Council area. And I'd encourage you, if you're interested in composting or you want the community to be exposed to that, to go to Envirocom. Thank you. Speaker 5: Have a look at the video. It's online. And it's an excellent production. Mayor Stewart: How long does it go for, the composting video?
01:08:00 Is it a couple of minutes? Speaker 5: Oh, it's more than that. It's probably 20 minutes. Mayor Stewart: If we did a movie night for the community down the track, like a trailer, you could potentially run the composting there. But that's only for a couple of minutes. Yeah. Councillor Jurisevic: Emma incorporates composting as part of the educational practice. The composting's a huge part of it. I know when we started this process, the Tewantin State School was one of the first to do it. And their waste to landfill and diversion rates went down by something like 80%. Excellent. And a lot of that's got to do with food waste and composting in the community garden that they've started up there, the facilitation there. So as this leaf goes through each of the schools, learning schools, the kids learn directly how the schools regard the food waste diversion at the localities. Speaker 5: We also take adults on trips to the landfill. You know, some of the aged people might want to go for a visit.
01:09:00 Councillor Jurisevic: I think one of the most unfortunate parts is that we no longer get trips to the MRF. People see the recycling process, the MRF actually, and the MRF can no longer host those as a result of occupational and safety issues. But when a new MRF is done, hopefully we'll get that back. You can actually go and see how the recycling process and all that. It's like the company yellow, a little thing, is undertaken. But there are videos online that you can see quite clearly and cleanly. I've got a number of those online as well. Councillor Wilkie: Okay. Wayne, on page 59 under section of risk, you mentioned that the Workplace Health and Safety Risk Assessment was done at the Eumundi Noosa Road Resource Recovery Centre. Yes. Can you just spell out some of the changes that you put in place as a result of that risk assessment? Speaker 5: We had an external consultant come in and do a full assessment of what was going on there, because we were concerned.
01:10:00 We had a number of near misses where heavy plant, nearly run into vehicles, and went close to some people who were on the landfill. To overcome that, there's a two-step process. Number one, we put a spotter on the landfill, and we pay Clean Away to have that person there. It's about $60,000 a year, and they're at the landfill in the very busy times, just to make sure that plant and people are not interacting in close proximity. Councillor Jurisevic: Not necessarily the general public, but when you're referring to people alone? Speaker 5: It can be worse. This is people dropping off green waste and concrete and children getting out of the car when they shouldn't, and plant working and can't see where they're reversing. So the spotter is the first stage.
01:11:00 The second stage is to expand the resource recovery area, and we did have a project in next year's budget, but that's been deferred. To clear some vegetation, and to expand the area available so that we can segregate people. The plan then was to take things like concrete, green waste, and put them into a bunker system where the public can go to the bunker and not be interacting with heavy plant. Councillor Jurisevic: Much the same way as you do with that first interface where the bin is down here, and you come up to an adjacent section and drop over the edge. Yes. Speaker 5: So that way we can have people being loaded with material, but not interacting with the heavy plant that is processing material. Councillor Wilkie: Has there been any indication of how the COVID restrictions have impacted on the amount
01:12:00 of domestic waste collected? Any way of determining that? Speaker 5: We haven't had a great drop off in domestic waste. In fact, in April we had more visitations than normal. We've had less commercial waste delivered because business is closed. The challenge now is for me to, I've had people saying, why is the landfill closed? Well, it's not. But we've been running the message that only go to the landfill with essential waste. We now need to start lifting that requirement. But I don't want to say the landfill is open slather because we'll have vehicles backed out onto your Mundy Road. So I just need to work out a strategy of how we get the message out there and get people coming in slowly. And we're certainly looking at that. Councillor Wilkie: When you say vehicles backed out onto your Mundy Road, that's not the normal, that's
01:13:00 not the situation normal there, is it? Speaker 5: We've had people backed out onto your Mundy Road when, for example, we have a failure in the IT systems at the landfill or a power failure and we can't process payments. Councillor Wilkie: That's not happening now, is it? Not at the moment. No. Why would traffic back out onto your Mundy Road if you... Councillor Jurisevic: A way bridge issue if there's a vehicle going. Because we haven't got one way bridge. A vehicle has to come back the other way. It stops everybody. All that vehicle goes... Councillor Wilkie: So a situation normal. Traffic backed out. Speaker 5: It doesn't happen often. But at Christmas time, we have banked up traffic. With the one way bridge, if we get a series of large trucks go through and they have to all come back over the incoming way bridge, it delays a lot of traffic and that can cause banking out onto your Mundy Road. And it's really dangerous. Yeah. Councillor Jurisevic: Sorry. Speaker 2: Some of the other reasons that we've experienced. When, obviously, the initial COVID-19 response phase came in, people have got that more
01:14:00 opportunity to be at home. They're not at work. They're not doing other things. So that was driving additional business. But the slowdown was also because we had to put in place much stricter measures in terms of, for example, cash handling, , et cetera. So that was slowing things down. So we had to put in place much stricter measures in terms of, for example, cash handling, So it's a combination of factors that's been causing more people at the landfill and a much slower processing time to get them through out the other side. Councillor Jurisevic: Well, and the transfer stations at Cooroy and Pomona are far smaller in capacity and only open for limited hours. Do we have any issues with banking up there on those mornings? No. Speaker 5: The volume of traffic is quite small at that point. We only get a few transactions an hour on average.
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01:15:00 Okay. And that's why we have very limited hours. Councillor Jurisevic: That's it from me. Thanks, Wayne. Thank you, Wayne. Anything else you could go? I'll move that. Thank you. I'll second. Is there a plan? All in favour? Speaker 6: Thanks, Wayne. Thank you, Wayne. Thanks, Kerry. Kerry's the next one. Councillor Jurisevic: Item seven. Community Services Department update. Councillor Wilkie: Yeah. Kerry, an update on the progress of the Pitchin Community House, please. Speaker 2: Yes, thank you. Great. So... Councillor Wilkie: Hang on a moment, Kerry. You've gone all funny. The Daleks. Speaker 2: Sorry. This is as far as I've got. I'm sorry. Can you hear me now? Mayor Stewart: It's gone all... Councillor Jurisevic: It's gone all Doctor Who-ish. Yeah. Mayor Stewart: I've got it. Just mute and I'll mute again. Okay. Speaker 2: Hang on. Oh, no. Mayor Stewart: Tenellic is great until it's all blurred.
01:16:00 Speaker 2: Do you want to go right out and come back in, perhaps? Yeah. Hang on. Councillor Jurisevic: Yeah. We'll be with you. Councillor Lorentson: And this might be internet. Councillor Jurisevic: That's not the first time that's happened in all the meetings we've been holding for. App issue. Oh, no. Maybe a reboot in some other way, shape or form. Just for the new councillors, there's an indication of the amount of work that our departments do through the period of a year and the number of projects our department of the size of Kerry's has got on board across the range of services they deliver. Speaker 6: Try it again Kerry. Councillor Jurisevic: That's better. Speaker 2: You know, out doing some hundering skills takes a while for the packages to work their way through. Sorry folks.
01:17:00 Speaker 6: I've heard of gremlins getting in the system but never Daleks. So Kerry, the question was about the Rupert Street project and where we're up to there. Speaker 2: Yeah, so thank you. So we have re-scoped that project and have worked our way through. The legal requirements for liquidation. We're working our way through that. They obviously haven't completed yet. But it has put us in a position in being able to go back and undertake the quotation process to complete the design documentation. That process has been complete and we have now engaged architects to complete the designs. That work was pretty much 90% complete anyway. So there's a piece of work to do there. And the change project plan is then to go out to tender for construction only rather than the design construct program that we had previously.
01:18:00 So we will complete that body of work over the next eight weeks. The design work and then go out to tender for construction of the community house and a revised landscaping plan. Councillor Wilkie: How has the liquidation affected the budget for this project? Speaker 2: That remains to be seen, Frank. Very much will depend on going out to tender again and what the tender price come in at. We have built in the options. We have moved to that new tender to enable us to scale the project back if we need to. And that scaling, however, will fundamentally alter the functional purpose of the building but may delay some components of the building to future years if needed to keep the project within budget.
01:19:00 Councillor Lorentson: Kerry, can I ask a couple of questions and probably one that, you know, I need some clarification on. What's Council done to put in place, what minimum financial requirements have Council put in place to ensure that we don't have a repeat of the RICOM situation? Are we asking for PBAs to provide payment security for work that we tender? Speaker 2: So the, I guess, obviously with the RICOM we have gone through and done a review of processes and then looking at what measures would be appropriate to put in place for future tenders.
01:20:00 And working closely with the State Government on some of the measures that they have proposed and are in trial, they've identified a range of issues with some of those measures. So we're looking at what additional measures we would put in place. And some of that work obviously will be implemented as part of the next tender for Rupert Street. Councillor Lorentson: Project bank accounts, PBAs, that's been used in a lot of tender processes, I think, with the State, with projects between $1 and $10 million and used also for commercial tenders. Is that something that Council has looked into? Speaker 2: We certainly have looked into that, Amelia, and it is something that is being trialled at State level but not required at local government. It has some absolute benefits but also there have been some issues raised with it.
01:21:00 So one of those issues that's been raised, for example, is that the requirements for those project bank accounts might be such that the tender may then only be of interest from a large contractor. Say, for example, a national contractor that works across the country and may therefore not be open to some of our smaller local contractors. And so that's the issue that the State and local governments are looking at is what is the balance that can be achieved that provides a greater level of surety or confidence that ensures that tenders are open to the broad range of contractors out there. The other issue that has been raised is that the way that the project bank accounts are operating at the moment is that they would provide a level of confidence to Tier 1 subcontractors, which are the largest contractors but not the next levels down.
01:22:00 So while they, on the face of it, provide some benefits, there's a lot more work that needs to be done to determine whether they actually will provide the security that particularly our smaller subcontractors have seen here. Councillor Jurisevic: My understanding, Kerry, is both the State and the LGAQ are working, well the State in particular, are working on a series of methodologies and trialling things like the bank accounts, contract bank accounts, but the LGAQ are also pursuing this because we're not the only council in this vicinity. Am I right there, Brett? Speaker 6: Even with this particular contract, there are three councils.
01:23:00 But yeah, it's an issue right across the State and not just in the local government. So it's challenging. Councillor Lorentson: Something that I would like, Kerry, for you guys to consider, we're at concept stage eight more weeks before we go into construction. Speaker 2: Sorry, what was that, Amelia? Councillor Lorentson: Okay, Kerry, I'd just like you to consider when council appoints a new builder, I think we should ask whether they're willing to engage the subcontractors who were working on the original job and give them an opportunity, provided they provide value for money, give them an opportunity to work on the job again. I think there's been a lot of subcontractors that were badly done by who've lost a lot of money. And I just think it's a goodwill exercise, given the COVID-19 situation we're in, to ask the new builder to engage the original subcontractors.
01:24:00 Speaker 6: One of the challenges of that, of course, is that when we go to tender, we might get five or six different builders whose lodge, they all have their own contract that they use all the time. It'd be very difficult for us to go to the market and say, you must only use, or you should use these particular ones, because that means that they're all going to use, they don't have their normal arrangements in place. Speaker 3: It also becomes a liability for council that if the work isn't up to the standard that we anticipate, and we turn around to the head contractor and say, that work isn't good enough, they say, sorry, you told us to use this subcontractor. So there are other implications with going down that path. Speaker 6: It'd be a good thing if it happened. Councillor Jurisevic: Absolutely. And different builders have different parameters around their subcontractors as well. I mean, you know, sort of elements of which contractor undertakes what element of the work. Speaker 2: Certainly built into our tender process, it will be looking at what the local economic benefit is.
01:25:00 So that's a really important part of our capital works projects and tendering process. And so while it may not be directly related to a subcontractor from Fregensley, there will be benefits to local contractors. Councillor Jurisevic: Is there an opportunity to change the weighting with regard to this contract on local content? Speaker 2: We always review the weighting methodology for each tender. And we would be doing the same to get a methodology that would be consistent with that. That produces the best community and financial outcome for the project. Speaker 6: Would you please, . Mayor Stewart: Kerry, I've got a question. Sorry, has Amelia been finished? Councillor Lorentson: No, I think you answered my question in regards to the local content criteria. Thanks, Kerry. All right. Mayor Stewart: Sorry. Thank you. Kerry, just, you said that you're looking at sort of a review of the processes and
01:26:00 what measures, you know, can be put in place for future tenders to ensure that what happened with RICON doesn't happen again and that some of those, some of those sort of protocols will be implemented in regard to this project? Speaker 2: So when I. So my question, yeah. We in council are looking at the, at the measures that we can implement. So. Yeah. We would look at what we can implement as part of the roof distribution. But the overall issue of contract stability and, you know, the, you know, the, you know, financial viability is an issue for local government as a whole and the measures that we implement. So we obviously have had fairly stringent measures in the past, but still there are situations when, unfortunately, a contractor manages, you know, through all of that assessment to
01:27:00 come through and score very high, you know, in terms of, you know, in terms of, you know, the construction and the construction of the land in the end, has unfortunately gone into liquidation. So we will be taking some of those learnings on board that we can for the next contract. Obviously we do not want a situation where we have a, have similar problems. We are confident though that because this is one of the reasons why we are looking at a construct only tender this time. If you, if you have a project that you're considering, you know, you're considering It reduces a lot of the risks because we're just dealing with basically the major contractor and then the trades to support that rather than the previous contract, which was designing and structuring a lot more complex with a lot more risk. Mayor Stewart: My question, I think, at the end of all that was with looking at these new processes, is there a timeframe around that, that this will be implemented within, say, six months, 12 months?
01:28:00 Do we have a timeframe on that or is that just a work in progress? Speaker 2: That's a, look, it's a work in progress and it's really more of a question for Carl's area in terms of, and procurement. Speaker 6: I was going to say procurement. Thank you, Karen. Okay. Just one other thing on this. Recently, we had, for the audit committee actually, done an internal review of our contract management and internal auditors came and had a look at that. One of their recommendations is to build in some better process or more process in terms of the financial capacity. Councillor Lorentson: Do we actually have a dollar value on how much we lost with the failure of RICON? Is that a question for you, Carl? Speaker 6: No. Brett? I could do that. We can take that on notice. We start with dealing with that. You're talking about council's loss?
01:29:00 Councillor Lorentson: Actually, yeah. Speaker 6: Not the subcontract? Councillor Lorentson: Just total loss. It was a $5.2 million contract. They went into liquidation owing $3.6 million. We've got, I think, $250,000 of studies owing money. But where do we sit in all that? Speaker 6: We can have a look at getting that. Councillor Lorentson: Yeah, that would be great. Councillor Jurisevic: Would that be something we can assess until we've got a new contract in place for the new building? Speaker 2: That's correct. Until we go out to tender, we don't have a clear picture there. It may well be that the project actually comes. It may well be that the project actually comes in on budget. Speaker 6: So, for argument's sake, can we just use some round numbers? Imagine, you know, we had a price originally of $4 million, whatever, and now we have to go back again. It comes in at $4.2 million. Part of our loss will actually be about $200,000 additional cost, as well as where we might have been on the way through. It would be good to have that number, Brett.
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01:30:00 Yeah, and until we get that next tender and we won't know that number. Councillor Jurisevic: Yeah, until the tender's gone out and we get that completed, we won't know the difference in the two contracts. So, there's no way of knowing the dollar value until that's complete. Speaker 6: Yeah. Councillor Jurisevic: Yeah. Or until probably, until the project is complete, to see if the project actually comes in on budget as well. Speaker 6: There'd be no problem incorporating that because the final decision will have to come back to Council in terms of our tender. It'll be a large one. So, we can incorporate that at that time. Councillor Lorentson: Okay. Holding cost, is that factored into that number as well? Speaker 6: Yeah, we don't have a holding cost normally compared to private sector, which would have, you know, interest on loan and things like that. We don't own. We own the site outside. So, not that same type of thing. Okay. Councillor Jurisevic: Sorry, Kerry. Just while we're still on the Peregian site, going down to libraries in your report, research possible location for potential library kiosks in Pomona and Peregian is one of the things being considered in that Peregian community building restructure, an element of looking at whether the library kiosk could be housed within?
01:31:00 Speaker 2: So, yes. As part of the auctions for... As part of the auctions for a library, kiosks or vending machines is one of the options being considered for some locations. And Peregian has been identified as the location which would suit a kiosk, given the high volumes of loans there and the difficulty of getting vehicles into that area. So, it is one option. Councillor Jurisevic: So, we have a question, I think, within the design of the building as it stands or going forward, is that something that's being thought about to incorporate within the design? Or within the space? Speaker 2: Sorry, Joe. I'm sorry. It's hard to hear.
01:32:00 It is being incorporated into the planning. Yes. As an option to either go ahead or not go ahead. So, with the kiosks, they can either go within a building or they can either go to the other building or external to a building and then... So, therefore, not impact on the design whatsoever. Okay. So, at the moment, the design accounts for either having a kiosk there or not. If it's not a kiosk there because we don't proceed with that option, then that just opens up a little bit more internal space in the building. Councillor Jurisevic: No, that's... You've answered the question. I just thought it had been thought about as a possibility within the space. Speaker 2: Yes, it has. Thank you. And it's in terms of it can either proceed or not proceed depending on the decision making that Council comes to. Brilliant. Councillor Jurisevic: That's the answer I was seeking. Thank you. Anybody else got any further questions? I've got a couple more.
01:33:00 Kerry, if I may. The Leisure Centre and the Aquatic Centre and those, the J and the like, whilst there's going to be a financial impact there, I'm assuming the possibility of less expense despite less revenue may result in a better net result. Is that something that looks like it may come up in the figures? Speaker 2: No. No. To be blunt. No. No. So, for example, if you take the Aquatic Centre, even though the Centre may not be open, we're still, you know, we haven't emptied the pools. So the pools are still operating. The water is still being filtered. There's still electricity, you know, pumped. So and we still have the salaries of the permanent staff to fund. So. Councillor Jurisevic: But not the casual staff?
01:34:00 Yeah. Speaker 2: No. Not the. Well, in some respect, we are still funding the casual staff. Because they were eligible for pandemic leave. Councillor Jurisevic: Okay. Yeah. Councillor Lorentson: Okay. Kerry, this is just something that I'm a little bit passionate about. The youth in our community. I note in with all your grant giving and stuff, you always mention the importance to activate community and social inclusion as part of your goals. And I love seeing projects such as sporting club infrastructure projects. And I love seeing projects such as sporting club infrastructure projects. And just skateboarding initiatives. I just want to take the opportunity to reinforce how important the youth are to our future. And we should just continue to explore opportunities to support youth organisations with either external or internal grant applications. Speaker 2: Thanks, Amelia. Speaker 6: Claire, I think you were going to ask about the bushfire funding one too.
01:35:00 Mayor Stewart: I was going to ask about bushfire. Just while we're on Leisure Centre and things like that. But my question, Kerry, was because we've been, I guess, cooped up for so long and the public are dying to get out there, do we have a strategy to manage sort of community expectation of when we can reopen these facilities and how we reopen them? Because it's going to be difficult. Because there's going to be that expectation that if we can open them, they should be open. And tell people. Speaker 2: Yeah. That's a really, yeah, it's a really good question, Claire. From a public perspective, they've heard the announcement that libraries, pools, community centres can reopen until Saturday. What the community probably don't see are that there's a whole lot of restrictions around that. For example, at the aquatic centre, you can have 10 patrons at a time. All they're allowed to do is swim lanes. There can be no people standing around the edge, et cetera. So, at the aquatic centre, you can have 10 patrons at a time. And those restrictions haven't been fully released yet.
01:36:00 So, we're awaiting further information from the Queensland Government, Queensland Health around it. And Noosa Council, along with many other councils, have submitted information requests to Queensland Health to help us understand exactly what our obligations are in terms of health, hygiene, and other public health measures, so that we can move forward with that, so that we can understand how we can operate. So, our plan will be a gradual reopening that provides services and facilities in a safe and healthy manner. And as soon as we understand exactly what's required, obviously, in terms of conditions, we'll be able to incorporate that into our planning. But we can expect that it will be a gradual recommencement of services. So, for example, with the libraries, we'll be able to incorporate that into our planning. We won't be, for example, opening the doors on Saturday.
01:37:00 If we did that, we would have many more than 10 people trying to come into the door. And what we don't want is a situation where we've got long queues of people who aren't appropriately distanced, who are getting very frustrated because they're unable to come in. So, instead, what we would be looking at is a more tail-end service. So, what we would call, for example, a click-and-collect service. So, that enables people to reserve an item online. They will get a notification when that item has arrived, and they'll be able to drive up to the library and collect that item. So, while it's great that the community is enthusiastic, we need to make sure that we temper that enthusiasm and maintain the really good work that the community has done in staying healthy through measures that are appropriate to the needs of the community.
01:38:00 Mayor Stewart: Thanks Kerry, thank you. And just, I just wanted to have a quick chat about the fire grant from the federal government, the $1.25 million. Speaker 2: So we are working through a process to allocate that funding to projects. Some of it is quite simple and is proceeding. So for example, additional fire hazard management with the addition of I think four extra burns, provided that we get the right environmental conditions to be able to proceed with that. Hazard management plans, community education, particularly around quick evacuation. So when we did our community consultation around this, we found that 30% of our community did not feel confident in being able to evacuate quickly.
01:39:00 They felt confident if it was, for example, a flood that they would know what to do, but not in terms of a speedy bushfire where they would have to leave quickly. So we're working with Queensland Fire Emergency Services. Around a community education program for that. Some of the other work that is underway is some works to our evacuation centres. And in being able to increase our ability, for example, to have people sleep overnight without having to bring in bedding. For example, from Sunshine Coastal Brisbane. Because that was a significant issue. That was a significant issue to us last time. So we would have that new facility be in place by the next fire season.
01:40:00 Mayor Stewart: Great. Thanks Kerry. That's all I had. Thank you. Councillor Jurisevic: Kerry got to answer all your questions. I know. Councillor Lorentson: Kerry's still on the bushfire recovery thunt. Just one last question. The community was actually invited to list projects and initiatives to be included in the capital works program. Just wanted to know whether these projects and initiatives that were identified by the community were in fact included on the list. And will these projects be available for public viewing? Speaker 2: So when we did the community consultation for the category D funding, yes, there was a wide range of ideas put forward. And then those ideas were workshopped by a forum that had more community stakeholder engagement. And so a number of those items have indeed informed the spending of that category D funding.
01:41:00 So, for example, that preparing quick evacuation plans was one of the highest priority items for them. Hazard management was another one that was a high priority for us. So they have been included. Some of the others, for example, ideas like some community infrastructure, say, for example, barbecue and picnic tables at Lake Clover. So that was one of the ideas that came through. So we would now work with the community to say, what would this look like? Is this something that you particularly want? Because that was an idea that actually came up from people outside of the community. So that's what we would work on. In terms of, will the projects be put up for the community to vote on? I'm not sure whether that was your question beforehand. No, we would undergo community consultation with the particular relevant stakeholders.
01:42:00 Councillor Lorentson: Thank you, Kerry. Councillor Jurisevic: And as yet, so the final list hasn't been made. Has it been drawn up, Kerry, or ratified at this stage? Speaker 2: So there won't be, I guess, a final list as such, because we are proceeding with some of those projects now. And what we will do is on, say, for example, a quarterly basis, bring an update back to Council to let you know where we're at in that. So at the moment, we have just simply started scoping out the projects. We're scoping out some of those and started doing some spend around small things that are more operational. Councillor Jurisevic: So who gets the final sign off on which projects do and don't get up?
01:43:00 Speaker 2: That would be the recovery team. Speaker 6: So that would be in accordance with the Council allocation within the different groups back in February or January or whatever it was? Yes. Speaker 2: So it's in line with the report that went up in March. And the allocations that were made there. So if there, for example, was a new project that came up that we felt warranted a change to that allocation, then we would come back to Council and have that discussion. Councillor Jurisevic: So the division of the $1.275 million has been assessed and approved by Council and the individual projects within each of those areas will be decided within the recovery team. Mayor Stewart: That's correct. Kerry, I was going to ask with those four burns that are planned, will we get notice about if and when they're going ahead?
01:44:00 Speaker 2: Absolutely. So that's four additional burns. Yeah. So you will, Council and the community will be notified. And our hope is that we have a good cool season and are able to get through those. Councillor Lorentson: Yeah. I keep saying one last question and I have 100 more questions. Kerry, in regards to high priority hazard areas, did you factor in some areas might not be recognised with our bi-hazard mapping as high risk. However, have you factored in sort of social risk and psychological risk? There are communities that need some fuel loads addressed and Council may not necessarily recognise them as high priority risk areas, but these communities need it for peace of mind and sleep at night.
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01:45:00 Have you factored those sort of things in when you have bigger communities asking you to address areas which, again, Council may not recognise as high priority, but they do? Mayor Stewart: Noosa Banks is a good one, I think. Councillor Lorentson: No. Links Drive and Noosa Springs, the oasis, is probably the one that I'm really quite concerned with because we have some big communities out there that really want... Mayor Stewart: I don't believe. Councillor Lorentson: Kerry might refer that one to Carl. Hold on, I've got Carl. Sorry, Kerry. Speaker 3: At the moment, there is a report that was prepared by the oasis community. We met for three hours with the oasis community, with police, QFES, National Parks and Wildlife Service as well, and we had their maintenance manager happen to be driving by, and he stopped in and joined us as well.
01:46:00 I think that's a good one. And he said, this needs to be discussed with all of the body corporates that are in that area, Noosa Springs area, not just oasis in isolation. So they've got some internal work to do themselves on this because some of the things they were asking for might not be wanted by other parts of that community. So in terms of, you know, we want to clean out the vegetation and remove vegetation along the Links Drive and so on, so that's going to impact on others' amenity as well. So I understand there are certain people within oasis that are concerned by this. A lot. We have to look at that broader community. Now, so we did answer a lot of their questions, and we have passed on their report through the LDMG. That has gone to QFES, and they will be responding to the particular questions there.
01:47:00 There isn't a lot of work that council can do in this area. There's a lot of work to be done in this situation. So their internal maintenance crews look after Links Drive, and the adjacent area is controlled by Parks and Wildlife. Now, they have got a burn plan there shortly, and that is the missing portion out of all of this. So the rest of it was all done last year, either by the Peregian fire or by a controlled burn that they had done prior to that, which was on the eastern side of the area. So that's the eastern shoreline of the Lake Weyba. So the next little portion is behind, going basically from that section that was burned and across through there. So that has been planned by Parks and Wildlife in the next month or so. I know that they haven't been able, they're postponing most burns that were due to occur this week because of the rain.
01:48:00 It's just too wet under foot, and they can't get the fire started. And they've also got to wait for the wind to be in the right direction from that area. Now, in terms of the psychological side of things, I'll leave that up to QFES to respond on that. So, but I'll take that on board. I understand that there's also a lot of people in the community that are... Totally, yeah. Speaker 2: So can I just comment on that? Yeah. Yep. So you're absolutely right that there are different elements to risk and how people can respond. You can see risk and whether it's an actual physical risk or a risk to them psychologically, or that's the impact that they're currently feeling. So at the moment, we are in the human social side of recovery, working with the education side of QFES around how we build in those support mechanisms and education mechanisms to help people overcome
01:49:00 their fear and their anxiety. And improve their resilience. And that's exactly right. So that's a key component of this recovery work, in being able to give people the confidence that they can cope if there was a situation. Because simply dealing with, say, for example, a physical hazard isn't necessarily going to deal with their feeling of anxiety and anxiety. It's going to deal with their feeling of anxiety and concern should something occur. So we handle it on a number of levels, both physical in terms of the environment, but also working with those communities around things like how you support your neighbour, what is your project, a neighbourhood safer place. All of those types of things give people a sense of much greater confidence that they would be okay if a fire came towards their community.
01:50:00 Yeah. Councillor Lorentson: Thank you, Kerri. Speaker 2: And it puts, it importantly puts the sense of control back to them. One of the big reasons that people feel highly anxious in this is that they feel that their control's being ripped away from them. That this fire just takes over their lives. And it's, they're helpless in the face of it. What we want to do is build in skills and knowledge for people to say, it's okay, you do have a sense of control in this. And these are the tools that we'll give you to give you that sense of confidence. Councillor Jurisevic: Empower them to know what actions they can undertake in the event that something is coming their way. Speaker 2: Absolutely. And those neighbourhood working groups are really powerful in that space. Councillor Lorentson: In regards to the Lynx Drive Oasis situation, I think when the body corporates approached Council some time ago, the reason that they wanted to do this was because they wanted
01:51:00 We didn't actually have the resources, we didn't have the money to go ahead with this fuel reduction. There is an opportunity now, we have got the resources. Speaker 3: So I don't, it's we don't do the maintenance along that links drive, that's handled by their internal. Councillor Lorentson: So that's the issue. Speaker 3: Yeah so and but we don't have a budget at that, so at the time we didn't, we don't have a budget to do any of those works. So has that changed? With this, possibly with this funding, so but. Mayor Stewart: So we are, so council is responsible then for that Carl, if we have a budget for it? Speaker 3: It has been maintained historically, there's an agreement in place with their maintenance contractor on site to look after that for them. So part of, they've got, it's a gated community and so what happens is they've got a maintenance team which handles all of the maintenance inside that. So we don't do any of that maintenance in that area. So they need to discuss it with the
01:52:00 other, body corporates that are there, come to an agreement on what is acceptable in terms of the fuel load and then they can deal with that. So the other, the other body corporates might say. So the onus is on them is what you're saying Carl? Yeah and that's what we told. Councillor Lorentson: It's not a council responsibility. Speaker 3: And that's what we told them on the day, we said you've got to go back and discuss this and that's what their maintenance manager said as well. He said you've got to discuss this with the other, other body corporates. You can't make unilateral decisions on this. Councillor Lorentson: But when we're talking human lives and fire hazards, do we really start saying, well this is your domain, this is our domain, surely community. Speaker 3: We can advocate for it, we can advocate for that, but that area is within their area to maintain, and then the adjacent area is controlled by Parks and Wildlife. We can advocate for that. Councillor Lorentson: But they still pay rates don't they Carl? We can't go under private housing. Speaker 3: Yes. Mayor Stewart: My parents live in the Oasis.
01:53:00 I know it pretty well, my parents live there in the Oasis. So it's a gated community that there is links drive, but the gate starts at the entrance of the Oasis which has 27 houses. And then the, across the Springs, the Springs is about 100 and something houses and that's separate. Now there's a body corporate to the Oasis I'm not sure about in regard to how many other body corporates there are. Councillor Jurisevic: Well you've got the, you've got the resort, you've got a new, new development up, up on the hill with the resort. Mayor Stewart: There was some concern with access, there was a concern with access for the two because of Park Region not being able to get out if it came to it, you know, because of the increased traffic, that was an issue as well. Councillor Lorentson: I just think community is community Carl. Speaker 3: Yeah I know but we're also worried about the rest of the community as well for the whole of Noosa. So we've got a finite amount of money and we've got a lot of people out there that are at far higher risk and that was discussed with them by Ben Carroll from QPS. Because they've got that golf course there with, with dams and they've got all little lakes in there and they've got the lake adjacent.
01:54:00 So they actually have got a place that they could be evacuated to by QPS and QFES, so but there are other people out there in the hinterland. So I think we've got to balance that in terms of the risk and that's what we want to do this review of is have a look at the, the basic, the whole area, look at the fuel loads, where we've had fires, where people are at high risk, take into account all of those considerations and we, we've got the, the QFES team that they handle this, this is their specialty, we're going to bring them in and have a look at that and then prioritise like we do with all of the other work that we've got through the QFES Council and through the Shire. Prioritise which areas we're going to address and where we're going to target the communities that are most at risk and assist them with trying to develop their own evacuation plans. They are concerned. Yeah, so there is, I understand their concern, so but there's a lot of other areas that are at far higher risk around, around the Shire and we're going to have to prioritise that.
01:55:00 We've got to take a strategic view of this. Councillor Wilkie: Correct me if I'm wrong but what came out of that meeting with QFES and QPWS and, and QFES with the Oasis Body Corporate on site that day was that they acknowledged that they were concerned that there were, that Lynx Drive itself wasn't a, a high, a high risk area but the surrounding QPWS areas were and so that's why they've scheduled burns there. Speaker 3: They were already, they were already scheduled so a lot of these are scheduled you know in advance, you know we all have a look at our different areas and that's what Cool Burn is about. It's about looking at where are our risk areas. Councillor Wilkie: So I understand that the Oasis Chairman is meeting with QFES in the coming weeks as well. Oh. To discuss it further. Yeah, I had an email from him. Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. Councillor Jurisevic: Councilors, I'm a little concerned that we've sort of gone off topic here. We're talking about the Community Services Department update. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:56:00 Not specific, not specific elements within, can we get. Councillor Wilkie: Page 71. It's sorted out for the moment. The Local Laws Compliance 837 customer requests. I compared it to the last quarter which we had 1208 customer requests. That's like a 33% drop off in requests. What's, what do you attribute that to Kerry? Is it just COVID? Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of it is Frank. Um, interestingly, we went through a period where there was a drop in requests, um, but of late, which I guess is post this data, the requests have actually gone up, which is interesting. It's almost like people went through a period where they just, uh, things calmed down. People were just at home, focused on what they were doing at home. But now the requests have gone up as people have got, for example, agitated with the dog that's barking down the street. They've had enough of that now. They've been at home eight weeks.
01:57:00 Um, and once again, now that people are starting to move out and about in the community, the requests are going back up again as, as we've got dogs off lead and things like that. Councillor Jurisevic: There were less barking dogs in the beginning because everybody was home exhausting their dogs by walking them. And now the dogs are barking back. Yeah. Speaker 2: And I think also, Joe, because, um, a number of barking dog complaints come because a dog has been left alone all day and it's simply, you know, it's a bored dog and it's barking. With more people at home, there's been less incidents of that, incidents of that, um, which is interesting. Councillor Wilkie: So Kerry, in the December quarter report, you said the new barking dog process has been initiated. What's been the result of that? Is that? How has, how has that affected, uh, is that part of the picture here that that's why you're getting fewer customer requests because the barking dog process was initiated and
01:58:00 has been successful? Speaker 2: That's more about how we deal with it when the request comes in, um, and the process that it moves through, which, um, helps a customer understand what their role is in it and what constitutes a barking dog, et cetera. So it has helped with, once the request comes in, in actually, um, bringing that to a more satisfactory resolution. Okay. And it clearly outlined, it's not enough simply to complain to council about a dog barking, that there will be an onus on the person making the complaint, um, to provide, um, factoring in a dog barking process. Councillor Lorentson: And just quickly, Shelter Renewal Program, Kerry, does that mean bus shelter canopies for hinterland areas?
01:59:00 Councillor Jurisevic: You're already going into infrastructure. Oh, I'm going. Sorry, Kerry. Councillor Lorentson: Oh, look, it's the wrong department. Sorry. Councillor Wilkie: I'm speeding this up too much. Sorry, Kerry. Unless there's any more, I'll move this one. Councillor Jurisevic: I've got one last question because nobody else has got another question. Kerry, deliver capital works and facilities projects. I know that there's a draft capital works brief for a new fire system at Cooroy. I'm assuming that's the Cooroy Library in response to ongoing issues with current system and significant reactive maintenance costs. I would have thought the Cooroy, it is Cooroy Library we're talking about. Speaker 2: Sorry, Joe, I'm unable to hear you. Something about Cooroy Library. Councillor Jurisevic: On page 70, the email I sent you with regard to the draft capital works brief for the new fire system. Can you hear me? Speaker 2: Barely. Hang on, the fire system? Councillor Jurisevic: Yep. Yes, sorry. Does that relate to the library?
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02:00:00 Speaker 2: I think that it does. I just think I'll have to get back to you on that. I'm not sure whether it's just the library or whether it's the butter factory as well. Councillor Jurisevic: Okay. Okay, well, I've sent you an email on that. And I haven't received a response, so I thought I'd ring it up again. If you can get back to me on that with regard to which fire system we're talking about, that'd be great. Yeah. Thank you. That's the last question from me. Mayor Stewart: Kerry, I just wanted to say thank you to you and Alison and the whole team. I mean, you've got 300 community groups that you're looking after in unprecedented times. And you guys, I see it every week in the local disaster management group. You're doing a stellar job. Councillor Jurisevic: And Barking Dolls. Mayor Stewart: Thank you. Councillor Jurisevic: Well done, Kerry. Mayor Stewart: I'll pass that on to the team. Councillor Jurisevic: Sorry, Councillor Wilkie, you wanted to move it. Do I have a second now? Second. Thank you, Councillor Morriston. All in favour? Thank you. Move on. Thanks, Kerry. We'll move on to one more. Thanks, Kerry.
02:01:00 Thank you, Kerry. Carl. Any questions for Carl? Speaker 3: Just looking for the unmute button under here. Councillor Lorentson: I'll start page 77, the shelter renewal project. Does that include bus shelter, canopies for hinterland areas, including Pomona? Speaker 3: Yes, it does. Councillor Lorentson: Fantastic. Fantastic. Councillor Jurisevic: Could you clarify this? Something like 21 or 22 bus shelters left remaining to be... Speaker 3: Oh, not even that. Yeah. Yeah. So we've got... I think we're down to about... I think we've got some starting in the next week. And then we've got probably, I think, I think it's 11 more to do next financial year. So we haven't got a lot left. The thing is, though, so that's for the DDA compliance. So the next step is that there is an upgrade program coming through with funding from the state.
02:02:00 And that is looking at upgrading and putting shelters on bus stops that have just got a seat or haven't got anything at all. They're just a concrete... The DDA. Yeah. Yeah. So we're going to... That's probably the ongoing work that you're going to see rolling out ahead of that. Councillor Lorentson: So bus shelter, canopies for Pomona. How about footpaths and crossings to get to the bus shelters? Has that been prioritised as well? I notice a footpath review in the report. Speaker 3: Yeah. Okay. So there is a portion of path that was included that was paid for by council. So the DDA compliant bus stops doesn't include that. And that linked up to the footpath that was put across the... by Queensland Rail across their land. It comes up to the side of the TMR. We do not put in infrastructure across TMR assets. That's up to them to do. So we have addressed the local resident who is raising that issue and told them they've got to discuss that with TMR.
02:03:00 When they're going to organise that portion of work, if they're going to organise that portion of work, that's up to TMR to handle. So but there's no other working to provide further linkages at the moment. In the program of works. Councillor Jurisevic: Given the TMR control, both areas of that state land, it's interesting that one hand isn't talking to the other within the organisation. Speaker 3: Couldn't comment on that, I'm afraid, Chair. Councillor Jurisevic: But I can. Mayor Stewart: Carl, the Noosa Bank Shelter Renewal. What's that specifically? Speaker 3: They were the ones that were burnt down during the... They're in that area. Yeah, so but they were already fairly dilapidated. So I believe we're relocating those to a different... You actually, I haven't visited those. You've visited those, haven't you? Speaker 6: Yeah, that's when you go down towards that boat or canoe launch here in the back there. That's the ones on the right. Mayor Stewart: Can you just do some clearing there?
02:04:00 Because those, I've called into those houses a lot. And I have a concern that they just want some load. Speaker 3: Yeah, so they're poorly located. They were put in by the developer. And it was obviously to meet a requirement. But it's really... From what I understand, they're not well located. And we might be looking at relocating them to a less mozzie-prone area. So I'm not... Just mowing. Councillor Jurisevic: My understanding, we've put one back there. We're looking at relocating a second one to a better location. That doesn't have the problems that that location had. We did with three... Speaker 3: I'll look at that. I'll look at the mowing. I'll look at slashing the boat. Councillor Jurisevic: Around Noosavance in general. Correct. Because they were also situated in one area. So everybody had to congregate to the one area. My understanding is staff are looking at whether they can be situated elsewhere around Noosavance. Mayor Stewart: But yeah, I'm just... The Noosavance people are concerned because they've got a lot of scrub growing. And they just want to... And it's not council... It's not their land. So they can't actually... Councillor Jurisevic: There's an element of that that's also QPWS. Speaker 3: That's what I'm worrying about. Councillor Jurisevic: So I don't know whether we're actually able to do it.
02:05:00 I raised that with staff the other day. And to see where the QPWs... And I actually raised it with John. I think at LDMG with regard to... Ah, okay. Councillor Wilkie: Wasn't there a review of the Civil Ops branch? Speaker 3: We have got a draft of that. Unfortunately, we were overtaken by COVID. So we haven't been able to go much further with that at the moment. We are going to be bringing in... We're looking at bringing in consultants to just facilitate that process. We are looking at certain aspects of it. There were some low-hanging fruit that we are investigating further. And one of those is the possibility of working closely with them. Closer with Gympie Shire Council. And possibly dry hiring a grader from them. So we're having discussions on that tomorrow. So they're ongoing at the moment.
02:06:00 Councillor Wilkie: Yeah, so it was conducted by an independent consultant? Speaker 3: Correct, yes. Councillor Wilkie: So what were the major findings in terms of what's the department doing well and what can be improved on? Speaker 3: That's a very long one. Speaker 6: It was mainly the Civil Operations branch. The outdoor staff. We looked at what's best practice. What can be done better in terms of scheduling of jobs. How they operate. Some of the structure issues. Some of the issues around utilization of plant equipment and things like that. So it's very operation based. We looked at how it can be run better. Speaker 3: The other thing as well it looked at was the connection and the tie together with asset planning and asset management. And how we need to... Look at how we could possibly speed up the process of getting asset management down to a more granular level.
02:07:00 So at the moment it's at a high level. You might recall when we had a look at those asset management plans. Fairly high level. So they look at a building. Or they look at a road. They don't necessarily look at the smaller detail. Like how many pits we've got. How much curb and channel we've got that needs to be repaired. And then what we need to do is once we've got that information develop maintenance plans and schedules. That utilize that information so that we have a more efficient system. And we aren't doing... So that we're doing more proactive work rather than reactive work. And we can put that into our future budgets. So that was probably the core area. And that's really just a function of being on that journey with the asset management plans. And getting them to a point where we can then develop the maintenance plans. So that we can do the work more effectively. Councillor Wilkie: Will there be any cost saving measures coming before us to consider as part of the budget? Speaker 3: Part of the budget? Not at this stage. There might be a few things. We'll be looking to. Councillor Wilkie: Any council.
02:08:00 Speaker 3: Definitely. We've definitely gone through a lot of savings for COVID. So like all the departments have. So we're definitely putting those forward. Yeah. Councillor Wilkie: Is this an operational in the document or will councillors get to see that? Speaker 6: It's really operational in terms of what they're doing every day and how they can improve that. That's why we always try and look at different areas to see how they can improve. And then what do we do about... We had the report just before the COVID started. So we haven't done too much about it yet. So myself and Carl and the management team will start to look at what we can change and improve. Councillor Wilkie: So just so I understand, we're talking about more proactive scheduling of work. Yep. That means that the crews out and about on the road will have their work cut out for them in a more systematic way. Speaker 3: That's right. Councillor Wilkie: So not necessarily waiting for the job and the job to be reactive. Speaker 3: It's also going to help with the supervisors in dealing that work out. Councillor Wilkie: Keep them better occupied. Speaker 3: Not better occupied.
02:09:00 It's the supervisors at the moment are having to get the complaint in or the CRM in. And have a look at it. Go, yes, okay, that needs doing. And then handing that on. We could be simplifying that system. And having it go that it goes straight from CRM to a work team's tablet. And they literally just go out and deal with the job. And they're out there anyway. Yeah, that's right. So it's about finding those efficiencies in the system. Yeah. Stemming from the asset management side of things. Councillor Jurisevic: And the maturity in the organisation. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Something we've spoken about with regard to, say, the bus stops were being implemented. But the pathways adjoining them weren't really considered at the same time. There's an opportunity there while we're there. Speaker 3: Better inspection regimes for, you know, so like we might have somebody go out and look at the bus stop. You're right. And somebody else will be going around looking at footpaths. And somebody else is going around fixing potholes. But when they're driving past, if they see there's an issue there, they can put that into the system.
02:10:00 And say, okay, that needs to be scheduled to be done. Rather than waiting for somebody who's, so if you see a pothole in the driveway. Councillor Wilkie: So a job description, for example, to be mindful of these other things. Yeah, that's right. No, it's not there specifically. Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. We're servicing the public. We're not fixing just potholes. My job is not to fix a pothole. My job is to service the public and the community and the local residents. The way I go about that is fixing that pothole. But also picking up that there are other things around it. That there's some graffiti there. And that someone needs to come back and clean that. Mayor Stewart: How long is the strategic tree management plan? I've had a few people contact me about the trees along any creek road. They're a bit worried about them. So if there's a storm, they'll hit the road. They'll knock over. Is that part of the plan? Is to have people go out and look at these things? Speaker 3: So part of that was that we would get the arborist to go out and do a thorough review of maybe not every tree. But in certain areas we have done that. So we have now got GPS coordinates for every single tree along the Gympie foreshore.
02:11:00 So what happens is the arborist goes along and does that review of them. And then rather than saying, okay, we've got to do these immediately. And getting a contractor to come out and chop down that tree there. Or trim this tree around, you know, so that we improve the lighting levels at the roundabout. What we do is we say, we're going to bundle these all up into a body of work. And we're going to put this into the budget for next year. So that what we can do is get some savings there by getting the contractors working in one area. Rather than going to a job down at Pomona. A job up at, you know, out at Cooran. And then one down at Tewantin. So and we've found already we're getting about a 10% to 15% saving on those. So which is great news. Mayor Stewart: And the person who assesses. Assesses the arborist. Are they internal here or are they an external assessor?
02:12:00 Speaker 3: We've got a full-time arborist on staff here. Although we do have contractors that can come in to assist with that. So there's two people in our arborist team at the moment. Councillor Lorentson: Yeah, okay. Thank you. Speaker 3: Yep. Councillor Lorentson: Page 86 in regards to the electric buses. I'm excited about future. But I question whether the timing is right. Sorry, what was that? Page 86. Yes. We, the next quarter, collaborate with Kinetic Tick to develop electric bus proposal including electric bus depot. Yep. Will the community also be provided with the costs of charging of the charging infrastructure? And will the community also be provided with the cost benefits of electric charging? Because we really want that. We'll need to be able to sell this to the community. Speaker 3: Yeah, okay. This is a fairly complex one because we don't run the bus service.
02:13:00 We don't run any bus services here. So it's run by Translink. Yep. And they have a contractor, which is Sunbus, that runs that service for them. Sunbus is going to, or Kinetic, which they've just been bought out, are going back to Translink and saying, we believe we can run this. This is the services here in Noosa more efficiently and more effectively. So then it's up to them to build that business case for that. We are definitely advocating for it, but that's really all our role is in this. Speaker 2: Okay. Speaker 3: So we won't be putting in additional charging stations. There won't be a cost to rate payers for that. We might do some in-kind work. Yes. So the problem with the electric buses, they don't have, it's the dead running time. So they're coming all the way up, the buses are diesel buses, coming all the way up from
02:14:00 the Sunshine Coast from their depot down there to work in Noosa. Now, if we were to set up an electric bus fleet, it really revolves around having a local depot. And so what we might do is to facilitate that. We might provide assistance in kind. So we might, for example, do some asphalting work on the site so that they don't have to pay for that. So, yep, these are things that we're investigating where we can actually just help things move along. So it just sweetens that deal a little bit more for both Sunbus and Translink to be able to go, yep, we think that's a good idea. We're going to proceed with that. Great. Councillor Jurisevic: Excited. Speaker 3: Yep. No, it's a great idea. Yeah. Councillor Jurisevic: We've been investigating the possibility of electric buses in the local region, how we facilitate those environments. It'd be nice to see it finally come to fruition in some way. Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely. Councillor Jurisevic: Any further reading? Frank?
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02:15:00 Councillor Wilkie: Place design is completed. First pass concept designed for the northeastern corner of the junction on page 18. Is that for the length between Noosa Junction and Hastings Street, Carl? Sorry. Speaker 3: Can you just repeat that for me? Councillor Wilkie: Page 18. Yep. Recent achievements. Bottom panel. A planner has been engaged with project planning from Noosa Junction to Noosa Drive on the Hastings Street precinct. Place design has completed first pass concept design for the northeastern corner of the junction. So that's where the walk begins or terminates. Is that correct? That's correct. Yep. Yep. So can you just explain what's envisaged? It's a walking link. Speaker 3: Yeah. So we've got a number of different projects on the go in that area. Yeah. So one is the walking and cycling strategy. So that's that strategic document. Then we've also got the planning studies that are being done, which are the north-south one, which goes all the way from Peregian all the way up to Noosa Heads.
02:16:00 And then we've got the other one, which goes from Tewantin across to Noosa Heads. So what happens is that they're coming into that, into a number of areas where we're trying to investigate in more detail as to what needs to be done. So we have got the boardwalk, which goes over the hill. And if we were to be putting in, for example, if we found it necessary to put in a tram or a transit lane over that hill, would we build that transit lane on the one side, which involves taking out a lot of trees and building a major piece of structure, or do we look at building it on the other side where that boardwalk is? So what we need to do is we need to come up with a plan for what is... Some ground protection. Exactly. Yes, exactly. So what we need to do is we need to look at how we're going to connect the Noosa Heads area to the junction, and part of this work is how we're going to do that.
02:17:00 So it's not just everybody looks at that downhill leg that goes down past Lyons Park, but what we've also got is that other part that goes from the hotel and goes down to the roundabout in the junction there. And where should we be putting the footpath there? Should we be putting on the southern side or the northern side? So we want to come up with a general intent of what the most efficient, effective way is of getting people to get across to Noosa Heads from the junction, look at the different modes of transport that we've got, and then that will inform us later on for discrete projects that come out of that. Councillor Wilkie: Does that answer your question? Very well. Speaker 3: Okay. Thank you. Mayor Stewart: Just on street lighting, it's just developed a plan for street lighting. Does that include places, Carl, that we can add lights? Like I've had some people worried about lighting in the junction or... Or the leisure centre at night, things like that? Speaker 3: Yeah. So that's more about street lighting rather than around buildings and precincts.
02:18:00 We have had a policy in the past of limiting the amount of street lighting that we have. So we don't meet necessarily all of the standards for light levels at roundabouts that TMR would be designing their roundabouts for. And that's partially because we don't... We don't want it lit up like a Christmas tree. We want the place to still feel like it's a village feel, and we're also putting the vegetation and the trees in front of light levels. So it has... It's a real delicate balance as to whether we light things up to very high levels, which is also very costly, or whether we want that more laid back village feel. And it's a very fine line. And yes, we are investigating all of that. We...
02:19:00 Most of that lighting that we've got out there for street lighting is handled by Energex completely. We don't have anybody in council that's an expert at lighting. We don't have any maintenance crews for lighting. So it's all done by Energex in that regard. And they... It's their asset. Councillor Jurisevic: But there is some lighting that is counselled for price? Speaker 3: There is some, yes. But it's usually the smaller stuff, and we usually have to get a contractor to come in and do that. Speaker 4: Okay. Speaker 3: So that would be increasing the levels of service, and we'd have to... There would be an additional cost associated with it. It's a really fine line. Mayor Stewart: But we are looking at increasing that... Potentially lighting for safety reasons in those roundabouts? Speaker 3: In certain areas, yes. Yeah. Yeah. So we're looking at doing an audit of all of our roundabouts with the light levels, and that will be hopefully brought up through the executive team and reporting to council on those. Right. Speaker 6: Thank you. There's also an interesting movement, just for information, called the Dark Sky Alliance, which is a...
02:20:00 I know. Yeah. It's exciting. Yeah. About how you've actually managed light in urban areas so that people can still see stars. And it's about the design. You know, having down with placing the types of lights and making sure you've got enough light for safety, but not be able to lose what you look up and see. Yeah. Councillor Jurisevic: Part of the future of lighting upgrades, too, is upgrading to LEDs with the capacity for lights to actually be turned off or dimmed during sessions when they're not required, as cars approach for the lights to actually come on and come off. That's all to do with technology of LED lighting going forward and things on those lines that we looked at. Speaker 3: The other problem that you do have with the LEDs is that you can't just replace them one light at a time. Yeah. You literally have to get rid of all the lights down a road. Yeah. And replace them. So some of them, they might have had their bulbs put in there one year ago, so it's not actually efficient to necessarily do it that way. But we are in discussions with Energex to upgrade the lights slowly to LEDs.
02:21:00 Speaker 4: Thank you. Councillor Jurisevic: Okay. I know Hector and Teewah Street Gravel Road reseal projects have been completed, because I drove on them the other day. Yes. Lovely to see that one being finished. I notice Ambulance Street is still to be done. Is that likely to be completed in the remainder of the financial year? Speaker 6: Yes. Councillor Jurisevic: Is it? Yeah. I must have missed it. I've already had somebody ... It's in the next quarter. I'm just checking that it is going to be completed. Yeah. Thank you. I think that's the ... Any other questions from me? I've asked a question about AWD plant. The staff are getting back to me on the specifics of that. That's it for me. If no one's got anything further, do I have a lever? A flame? Speaker 3: No. Thank you very much. See you all later. Thank you. Councillor Jurisevic: Where are we at? We've got Michael. We've got Michael here. Speaker 2: Are you there, Michael? Councillor Jurisevic: Yeah. Hello, Michael. Hi. Item nine, corporate services department update. Questions, councillors? Councillor Lorentson: Do I ... I'm not sure you want me to start, Michael, because I've got quite a few questions.
02:22:00 We're going to start somewhere while you go. Page 88, special projects. This is something that I'd actually like referred to the general committee. Page 88. Page 88, I think. 89. Sorry. Special projects. Okay. It's in regards to website property monitoring of short-term accommodation sites that are now rolled across all key suburbs and precincts. I've got to say that when I read that, I was quite shocked. My first reaction was, this is an invasion of privacy. And I also thought it's not illegal for residents to provide short-term accommodation. Anyway, when I asked for some more information, I was told by yourself, actually, Michael, that council commissioned B&B guard to assist with identifying addresses for properties offered for short-term accommodation, e.g. stays in their B&B. I was also told that the data that's used to find ...
02:23:00 Is used to find out whether a property is paying the tourism and economic levy. If council identifies a new property, they write to the property owner advising that this levy will be applied from the next rating period, quote unquote. Again, this took me by surprise. So this is my first lot of many questions that I'm about to ask. And I also ask that the other committee members allow me to finish my run of questions before interjecting. My first question is, on what authority or which legislation are you relying upon to push this levy? Is it lawful? And where can I find the council meeting minutes that approve this levy? Speaker 6: Okay, great. So that's the government act. Well, we set a levy for it. And the decision was made at the time the council adopted the last budget. So the tourism and economic levy is part of the budget document. Councillor Lorentson: Okay.
02:24:00 Thank you. Thank you. And that indicates who that applies to, don't you? Councillor Jurisevic: Yeah. Councillor Lorentson: Okay, more questions. Who is B&B guard? When did council commission B&B guard? For what reason, and at what cost? Speaker 6: Yep, Michael, do you want to just outline when we started using them? What was that, two years ago, I think? Speaker 4: Look, if this is going to be referred to general, why don't we just deal with it there? Councillor Lorentson: Oh, is that the process? I'm not sure, Michael. I've been here three weeks. Speaker 4: Well, generally, if a report's being referred to General Committee, then there's a discussion in front of the General Committee. Councillor Jurisevic: This is the first I've heard of it being referred to General Committee at this stage. I haven't heard a resolution one way or the other, Michael. So at the moment, we've just got questions in front of us. Are you seeking more information with regard to this? Do you want to put a series of questions together, Councillor, or do you want the questions answered here and now taken on notice? Councillor Lorentson: I would like to ask some questions now and still refer it to General Meeting. Is that
02:25:00 how the process works? Speaker 6: Yeah, normally, a report would be referred to General Committee if the recommendation was agreed to. And this is a recommendation to an update report. It's not about adopting individual items within that. It's simply a report for information that accounts for what activity each of the departments have been doing. Councillor Lorentson: So can I continue with my line of questioning? Councillor Jurisevic: I don't have a problem with it. See how far this goes. Councillor Lorentson: Okay. So who is B&B Guard? When did Council commission B&B Guard? For what reason and at what cost? Speaker 6: I can answer part of that. Obviously, we commissioned them to identify properties that are being used for Airbnb so that we can determine their location. Michael might be able to recall how long ago. My recollection is about two years ago. That's a long time.
02:26:00 Councillor Lorentson: Okay. In regards to the imposition of a tourist and economic levy, do residents actually know that this is happening? That if their property has been offered for short-term accommodation, they are going to be asked to pay a tourism and economic levy? Was there any community consultation? Speaker 6: We'll give you a bit of that background. The tourism, originally called the Tourism Levy, started in 2001 and it was requested by the Tourism Society of Australia. The Tourism Sector to raise funds to promote the Shire and it's been in place in one form or another since 2001. So properties, for example, I'll probably break them into what I call the Airbnb, which is more of a recent type of thing. So properties back in the 2000s were used for short-term accommodation, rented out and have paid that levy since that time. There's been no change in terms of essentially who's paying that. There's been no change in terms of who's paying that. There's been a couple of minor refinements of how that works. So, for example,
02:27:00 maybe two years ago, we recognised that some of the properties that were being used for short-term accommodation were also being used by people to live in, so people renting out one or two rooms in a property. And we introduced as part of the budget process, through the policy, particular discounts. So they only paid, I think it was for a third. Councillor Wilkie: 33%. Speaker 6: 33% of the levy. But properties have been paying, have been used for short-term accommodation and been paying that levy since about 2001. Councillor Lorentson: Okay. I think that I'm a little bit confused. My short-term accommodation doesn't use existing resources. There's no need for extra roads. There's no need for extra infrastructure. It means that Council doesn't have to build more hotels. So, I think that there's no need I'm still confused why residents have been asked to pay this levy. Short-term accommodation
02:28:00 injects money into our economy, and most of these short-term accommodations are existing empty rooms that just lay dormant in people's homes. Can you explain? Speaker 6: Yeah, sure. I understand that it's a levy, not going into general rates. There's a difference between the levy and general rates. So, the levy can only be used for the purpose of which was raised. And in this case, the levy is primarily, large amount of that levy is then paid to tourism nurses for promotion to Shire and the location. And other elements of the levy are used purely for economic development issues. So, none of the levy raised is put into what's called consolidated revenue, for want of a better phrase, in terms of going towards roads or cars or anything like that. Councillor Jurisevic: One of the reasons the short-term levy accommodation providers would pay that levy is that they get the benefit of the promotion of Noosa as a region for people to then utilise their short-term accommodation. Councillor Lorentson: So, let's talk about the short-term holiday managed accommodation places.
02:29:00 Councillor Jurisevic: Can I just clarify one point that you made there as well? You suggested that council build resorts or hotels or the like. Council don't have responsibility for building any type of short-term accommodation provision. Thank you. Councillor Lorentson: What does council charge in levies for? For a room at the Sofitel or a room, a holiday managed unit in a resort. Do you know off by heart? Councillor Jurisevic: As far as the Tourism and Economic Levy goes? Councillor Lorentson: The Tourism and Economic Levy. Councillor Jurisevic: Charged on the property, I think. Councillor Lorentson: But the property would pay the Tourism and Economic Levy? So, how does that compare to the levy that's, that is imposed on residents? Well, no. Speaker 6: It depends on the value of the property. So, under a, under the policy, which is in the budget documents, we have a formula we use, which determines based on own gross capital value in cents and a dollar, which determines what each property would pay who is obliged to pay the Tourism and Economic
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02:30:00 Levy. So, they run through that formula through the rates. I can't obviously do individual properties off the top of my head. Okay. Councillor Lorentson: Where's all this information kept and who can access this information? Speaker 6: It's all online on the website and it's part of the adopted budget. So, in the budget documents, we have policies that deal with our, each and every levy. We have individual levies for the location, for example, Hastings Street or Noosa Junction or what have you. But all of our levies each year we adopt as part of the budget process, which identifies what the levy is for, how much it is, how it's calculated, what its purpose is, as part of the revenue statement each year. Councillor Jurisevic: Council, I'd suggest probably the questions are more pertinent to the budget process than the report on the ongoing activities of the department as it stands at the present moment. I'm prepared to give you a bit more leniency with regard to your questions down this path. Councillor Lorentson: Okay. Just two more questions, Joe.
02:31:00 Do you think it's reasonable that we should be, in fact, even asking for a Tourism and Economic Levy, given- Councillor Jurisevic: I don't think that's a question. That's not your question. I think that's a Council budget question. Councillor Lorentson: Okay. And finally, is it possible that the only reason Council has commissioned B&B Guard to collate this data is because it gives Council an opportunity to control short-term accommodation and two, it's an opportunity for Council to cash grab from residents by enclosing a levy? Speaker 6: I think that's an unfair question in terms of asking for a levy. I think a judgement of that motivation. Sure. I think- Councillor Lorentson: I think the levy is unfair and inequitable. We'll take that as a comment. Councillor Jurisevic: I think that in regard to what the department is achieving in this quarter, that's probably a question more for the budget process and deliberation in the budget process than it is for the matter before us. If that's acceptable, yes. Councillor Wilkie: The Council has every right to strike up an element of the tourism levy.
02:32:00 Councillor Lorentson: That's all. That's fair enough. I've been going on since 2001. Councillor Jurisevic: That's fair enough. I think, again, they're big questions for the budget process as we go forward. And once we get into that, we get those deliberations and those opportunities to discuss each of those elements that you raised. Councillor Lorentson: The monitoring process hasn't though, Frank. The monitoring process has been happening for two years. That's right. Okay. So let's- That's quite true. Speaker 6: I was Director of Corporate Services back in the 2000s. We used to monitor all the short-term led properties in Noosaville as well through websites, through advertising and so on to identify properties who were benefiting from the promotion of the Shire and who should be contributing through that. Councillor Wilkie: B&B Guard's a new method of detecting that. Speaker 6: Just a means of- In terms of the process, that's been in place since about- I joined in 2001 and it's
02:33:00 Councillor Wilkie: A note for, is that like an internal, these are internal milestones, Michael? Sorry, Frank, where are you? Speaker 6: Page 89. Councillor Wilkie: Page 89, under budget? Sorry, Michael. Yeah, correct. Okay. Councillor Wilkie: Anything further from it? Page 92, undertake early adoption project with technology one to implement the new CI Anywhere Contracts module. What does that mean, Michael, please? What does contracts, the Anywhere Contracts module deliver in terms of your services? Speaker 4: It effectively allows us to monitor contracts that are over $1,200,000 that have been approved by Council. And there's functionality in the system that allows us to obviously manage those contracts from inception through to completion.
02:34:00 There's functionality that allows us to work flow approvals, delegations and so on. And it also satisfies our external audit requirements to report on our contractual commitments over the next five years. So that was another driver. It was an outstanding audit recommendation to develop this module. Councillor Wilkie: Okay. And just on page 91, transition to remote working. For staff, I guess it's a more general question, and the CEO might want to answer this. It's about, has there been any thought to about what working for Noosa Council may look like after this COVID crisis is over in terms of staff's capacity to work from home? Will they be given that option? Speaker 6: Yeah, we've had this discussion with the exec team actually in the last week or two. Some of our staff have really taken it to it like fish to water. And it really depends on the nature of the person and the nature of the job. So some of the introverts love it.
02:35:00 They can sit in a corner, you know, work quietly and diligently and getting more done. And particularly with the nature of the work means they can work on their own. Some of the other staff have struggled a bit. You know, there's the extroverts or the people where they need to interrelate a lot with other staff in the nature of the job or bounce ideas off. Councillor Jurisevic: Maybe they have an element of white-weather distraction at home as well. Speaker 6: Yeah, sure, and it's difficult for a lot of people who are doing home schooling at the moment as well. So we'll have some staff who would like to do more work from home, and we're certainly open for that. Okay, so no philosophical objection? No, not at all. In fact, what we said is, you know, it depends on the nature of the team and the manager and how they're going to work. But we've made it pretty clear that as we come back, whenever that might be, that I suspect we'll see a lot of staff maybe working from home for two days or, you know, and then coming in for three days or something like that. Councillor Wilkie: Yeah, so there'll be less traffic on the road, less travel costs for them. They're delivering the service just as effectively. Councillor Jurisevic: Yep. Yeah. How would you assess, what would be the term value for money for staff at home as opposed to working?
02:36:00 Speaker 6: Yeah, where the job's getting done. Councillor Jurisevic: Yeah, where the thing's being deployed. Speaker 6: Yeah, and Michael's a good example, actually. He has in his area, he always puts down a couple, what term he is, Michael, deliverables for the day or something like that, where, you know, what are they going to get through. And that's very good for processing type jobs. You can tell whether, you know, a particular account's part of the job's being done. Councillor Jurisevic: For example, a KPI or something like that, yeah. Mayor Stewart: I've got, I've just got two. No, no, go on, go on. I've just got two quick questions. Yeah, please. Michael, just with the fleet replacement and maintenance program, were we able to source those or any new sort of cars or trucks or whatever locally in that replacement and maintenance program? Speaker 4: Yeah, obviously we, when we go out to tender or procurement, quite a lot of the, the local dealers get back those, those contracts, Clare. Speaker 4: They, because they're generally the local distributor of, particularly Isuzu and, and so on, Mitsubishi.
02:37:00 So, yeah, look, the local suppliers generally do okay, particularly with our small fleet. Obviously some of the bigger plant, the yellow plant, it's a little bit more problematic and that generally comes from Brisbane. Mayor Stewart: Yeah, and I imagine going forward it's probably even more important. In the coming years to buy local, to sort of help our local, if we can, if it's, if the price differentiation isn't too, too severe. Speaker 4: Yeah, no, no, look, generally a lot of those arrangements, they might be, it could be a national panel arrangement through Local Buy. However, the local supplier gets the, gets the contract through the national arrangement. So I think it works quite, quite well for our, our local suppliers. Councillor Jurisevic: There'd be an element of maintenance in that as well, wouldn't there, Michael? Outlet? Speaker 4: Maintenance, did you say? Yes. Yeah, look, all, pretty much all our maintenance is locally provided from our local suppliers.
02:38:00 Mayor Stewart: Michael, the last question I had was on page 92 about the holiday parks. Look, we, I think, you know, with these parks, we're going to face the same, the same challenges as reopening like the leisure centre and the NAC and it's going to be a very stagnant approach. At what point do you, does this become economically viable to reopen these parks? Is there a plan in place? Speaker 4: That's a great, that's a great, great question. Councillor Jurisevic: Great question. I know the grey nomads have died to get out there. Speaker 4: Currently being analysed, Clare. Okay. Thanks, Michael. Councillor Jurisevic: Sorry, Amelia, I can't, we exhausted one avenue of questioning before. Is there any other questions you've got on the report? Councillor Lorentson: No, all good. Thank you, James. Councillor Jurisevic: All right, I don't think I've got anything further, Michael. If they can have a mover for the report. I'll move. And the seconder, Clare. All in favour? Thank you. Thanks, Michael. Thanks, Michael. Thanks, Michael. Thank you. Item 10, executive services department report. I'll pass it over to Deb. Yeah.
02:39:00 Any questions for Deb on the report and the progress of the department? Mayor Stewart: I only had one question, Deb. I'm back to reporting insurance claims. Speaker 1: Where were they mainly from? Oh, look. They're fairly steady. There's often things around trees, and that's often related to weather problems, like if you get storms, sea, you know, storms or something like that. There's some insurance claims to do with, you know, motor vehicles. And incidents, motor vehicle incidents and things like that. They're normally smaller scale stuff. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you'll have to, like, for example, somebody's stormwater draining being, has been infected by roots from a tree on council land, and that's an issue that we have to investigate. So, yeah. They're mainly smaller things. They're mainly smaller things. Mayor Stewart: What's the approximate annual payout for those claims? Speaker 1: Oh. Oh. I couldn't tell you off the top of my head.
02:40:00 I'd have to take that out on notice. That's all right. It's not significant. It's not significant. We manage our claims, actually, very well. And so, they're normally smaller amounts. Yes. Mayor Stewart: But whose council's insurer? Speaker 1: For these sorts of claims, for public liability, LGM. It's a scheme. And for our work cover, it's LGW. Okay. Speaker 6: So, that's where, like, member mutual schemes. Yeah. So, all the councils in Queensland together underwrite. Okay. So, they have a underwriter. Sorry. Our scheme coordinator. And we share the risk. Right. So, about 70-something council. Yeah. Okay. So, it's a collaborative approach. Speaker 1: Yeah. And we have a number of policies. That scheme actually sources insurance for the members of the scheme, of course. But it covers a broad spectrum of the different types of insurances that we need to run our business and provide services. So, there's quite a... There's a number of... You know, everything from marine hull through to public liability through to cyber risk. And we've actually just...
02:41:00 We're just going out for our next year insurance coverage. So... Okay. Thank you. Councillor Wilkie: Page 97. Preparation of VELPIC training pack for all staff on compliance with human rights. VELPIC's a brand name, I guess. Speaker 1: VELPIC. Yeah. It's our training. It's our system where our staff can do online training. Councillor Wilkie: Okay. And compliance with human rights, that wouldn't involve any major changes to the way this organisation's already operating, would it? Speaker 1: Oh, my goodness me. It will... It will enlighten me. Is it? Well, no. There's been... The Human Rights Act is brought in... The Human Rights Commission administers the Human Rights Act as well as the Anti-Discrimination Act. And with the Human Rights Act, there's requirements... There's requirements on Council, particularly in our decision-making processes, to make sure that we comply. For example, it might be... I'll use this as an example. It's probably not the best example. When we're purchasing certain services, that those services are provided by suppliers who
02:42:00 put in place ethical practices with regards to their labour and things like that. So there's a number of areas. There's about 23 areas that are actually covered. And we are actually reviewing our Council policies to make sure we do comply with the requirements of the Human Rights Act. We've done a little bit of training with staff already, and we will be doing more, and we just had an independent review of our policies to make sure that we do comply. And I'm just about to start looking at those to see where we might need to make improvements. Councillor Wilkie: I'm sure there's an ethical supply chain. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. So there are... And it is... The supply area is one area. Some other areas are things around access and things... Access as well. So... Councillor Wilkie: Access to buildings and... Yeah. Equal opportunity... Equal access. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a number of areas there. I have a feeling... Brett, I think we've reported this to Council, the previous Council, but not to, of course, to new Council. But I'm happy to distribute some information around to the Councillors about that if they'd
02:43:00 like to... Councillor Wilkie: One of the main changes that we may see... Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. All right. I'm happy to do that. Councillor Wilkie: So are you saying there wasn't one? Speaker 1: Not specifically. Conflicts of interest is normally dealt with in a number of our other policies, but this is a specific policy on it, to be very clear. It's something we've also identified in our internal order, and it's an area of improvement by being quite specific on the conflicts of interest for staff. It is covered in our Employee Code of Conduct. Yes, I thought so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Councillor Wilkie: So you have a register of interest for staff, key staff, as well as managers and directors. Yes. Yes. Yes, we do. Self and directly. Speaker 1: Yeah. And we even declare for our, you know, related parties as well. Councillor Wilkie: Yes. Councillor Jurisevic: All that? All that? All that? Thank you. I had to have a chuckle to myself, Deb, when I read the page.
02:44:00 Oh, not the training budget. Speaker 1: No, no. Councillor Jurisevic: Recruitment and training. Continued training of three new casuals within the Noosability building. Yes. When did we build the Noosability building? Speaker 1: No. So Noosability is the project name for the ICT systems work that they've been doing, and we actually rent an office up the road. And our community, our customer service actually moved in there because we had trouble with our customer interface with the COVID. So they've actually been working from up the road. Councillor Jurisevic: So there is literally a Noosability building. Yes. Yes. It's labelled Noosability. I thought I misread that as meaning a capability building, you know. Speaker 1: No, no, no. It's the Noosability project, and it's run by Michael, and it's a relationship. Councillor Jurisevic: I knew about the Noosability project, but I read that as Noosability building being some sort of a structure. There is actually a structure associated with it. Yes. It wasn't what I anticipated at the end of the week. So thank you. Speaker 1: Yes. No. Councillor Jurisevic: That's it for me. Okay. Can I have a move? Mayor Stewart: Thank you. Councillor Jurisevic: Thank you. Oh, sorry. Mayor Stewart: Can you move? I'll second it. No.
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02:45:00 Councillor Jurisevic: No. No. Claire, all in favour? Thank you. Mayor Stewart: Thank you. Thanks, Deb. No worries. Councillor Jurisevic: Thank you, Deb. Item 11, operational plan progress report third quarter. Good to see you. Speaker 6: Any questions for the CEO on this report? I might just outline a bit of the background of this in mind. Might be a good plan. I report every three months on some of the key issues. The operational plan is that plan that's adopted as part of the budget each year. What are the top 20 or 30 projects the council's focusing on for that year? So I'll give you an update every three months that covers that. What's not a statutory obligation is to deal with KPIs, the organisation's KPIs. So we put those as an added extra, so to speak. And I don't know that too many other councils do that. So I'll give you more information just about how the organisation's travelling. So you'll see on the first page of the report, it's really about where this fits in, is that we've got the corporate plan. I'll give you a report on that once a year, almost in July. Just about some of the long-term projects, how that's going. And then the operational plan is we get quarterly.
02:46:00 A lot of what in the branch plans is what the departments have just been giving you over the last day, which is what are they working on at an operational level. We've got the financial reports, which come every month. So you'll get one of those at the general committee meeting every month. And you saw the first one of those at the ordinary meeting last week. And every three months, we're going to cover work. So there's a bit of reporting that sits in that structure to keep you informed about what's happening. And then in the operational plan update, what I do is to run through where we're up to overall with some of our major projects. What's ahead? What's behind? If they're behind, why are they behind? Put that detail in the attachments. And then also some information about KPI. What's happening organisationally in terms of staff or customers or finance or whatever it might be. And give a few comments on that as well. That's just an overview of what I can do. Have you taken any questions? Councillor Wilkie: Mayor, have you got any questions? No, the KPI graphs are very useful.
02:47:00 Speaker 6: Yeah, I want to be a bit nervous about the- We've already gone ahead of the question. No, no, no. Our workplace health and safety. I hope you just talked about that a bit. We had- What page are you on, Ben? So if you have a look on, just let me get the page up. 115 in terms of the graphs. So one of the things that- Yeah. We struggled within the first year or two after the amalgamation was getting our systems in place to have good workplace health and safety. We had to really start from scratch. And really, we struggled for about two or three years. And we started to get more serious about it, yeah, probably three, maybe, yeah, three or four years ago. And spent a lot of time and effort. And last year was the first time we saw our premium go down, which was good for the first time. I've just got advice since I've done this report that it's going to go up again next year. So I've asked Deb to dig into why that is.
02:48:00 Because it's normally a- A bit of a lag. Yeah, a bit of a lag and a consequence of your number of claims and the value of the claim. So while we've had much improved sort of compliance in terms of all our documentation and process, and we've been audited and all that just has gone well, it hasn't flowed through to some of our number of claims and the value of claims yet. And just got to dig a bit further onto that. So that's one of the things that I probably would spend a bit more time on in the coming months. I'd look at how we can improve that. Councillor Wilkie: Can I ask, on that point, Brett, is that related in any way to the spike in lost time to injury back in August, September last year? Speaker 6: It's a huge spike. It's been August, September 18, 2018.
02:49:00 Whereas the purple dotted line is 2017, 18. So you can see compared from year to year what the stats are. And then the blue line is this year, this financial year. So it's certainly come up again over the last four months or so. Yeah. So can you tell us- Mayor Stewart: Does that be COVID related though? Speaker 6: No. This would be before that because December, January, February wasn't COVID and only March was really half of it. Councillor Wilkie: August, September in 1891. What happened then, Brett? Speaker 6: I can't recall. I know we had one major claim at that stage. You might recall the tragic passing of one of our staff who was driving home. So that was a major claim because she was still on work time when she was hit by that car, by the truck I should say. So I don't, I'm pretty sure that's not related to that particular spike, but it may be related to the insurance premium because that was a major claim.
02:50:00 Yeah. And we were still then sort of chased to get that back off the truck driver who went to jail. Yeah. Mayor Stewart: She did as a fatality. It was. Yeah. Speaker 6: Very difficult time. Councillor Jurisevic: It was. Yeah. A lot of, a lot of. None further? I've got a couple if I may. Yep. Let me get back to, obviously, page 107, we're talking about the final adoption and the new, there's a planning scheme. Yep. Obviously, there's a lot of people in the community interested to know where we're at with the planning scheme and when the final adoption may progress. What is the timeframe? I know we've got a planning scheme update this week scheduled for councillors in a workshop. What's the planned timeframe for the planning scheme from here? Speaker 6: We'll have that workshop depending on what issue the councillor raised or what other work we want done. It'll be up to the, I'll talk to the mayor about the timing to bring that forward then after that workshop. Councillor Jurisevic: Okay. The second question comes up in our people on page 108.
02:51:00 Yep. The last carry-up there was of concern. Our staff turnover was unusually high in the March quarter. Only quite in the September quarter after a time quarter, but any reasons as to why the March quarter? Mayor Stewart: Election. No one wanted to be here. Councillor Jurisevic: We were here. Did we really drive them out? Speaker 6: Did we really drive them out? It's the new councillors. Worry about council turnover. No. It wasn't that. I looked through the list actually. I got colleagues to be there for me to have a look at the list. There's no sort of apparent reason that I could see. Councillor Jurisevic: Was it any, were they unforeseen? Speaker 6: Yeah, most of them. And they were all from different areas across the organisation. I was only looking to see if there was a pocket of issues or something like that. But there was no particular rhyme or reason that I could see, yeah. Councillor Jurisevic: Okay. So, yeah, opportunities, better opportunities beyond or retirements or, you know, where Speaker 6: were they in their work progress on this? Yeah, there were two. They were retired. The rest was different, you know, different reasons.
02:52:00 Family reasons or other jobs or whatever it might be. Unusual. Yeah, it is a bit unusual. It's the first time I've seen that in probably four, five years. Councillor Jurisevic: Well, I said that. Speaker 6: I can't recall. Councillor Jurisevic: No. Since in six years of, six and a half years of council. So that was why it made me look back. But okay. I'll take it on your, on your advisement. It's a one-off and we'll see where we go from there. Those were the only two questions I had from the reporter. Councillor Wilkie: Can I jump to page 119? It's percentage of requests for service that were lodged electronically. Can we take from that that 60, 70% of our community would still prefer to leave the council to lodge a request and talk to somebody? Speaker 6: Yeah, there's still a lot of that. We're getting about 200, 240 phone calls a day through the front counter. Yeah. Which are coming directly to the general line. And probably 70% of those have dealt with, or 80% of those have dealt with that one stop shopping type of approach. Councillor Wilkie: Yeah. Speaker 6: This has been improving.
02:53:00 Like when we first started, you know, we were down around that 20, 25%. We're getting up around 35%. That's, we only started reporting these about two years ago, three years ago. I still want to get up over 40 people to send. Councillor Jurisevic: That means we're only getting 30 to 40 sort of requests a day via email and captions hold, right? Speaker 6: Most of those are here, Joe. I know, but captions hold. The other thing we've got, Michael, it was in Michael's report just very briefly, we've got a better, our current web interface for people to lodge online requests is not very intuitive. So we've got a new one coming, it should be within about the next three to six months. It'll make it a lot easier for people to jump on our website as well. We're getting a lot of stuff through SnapSend sold and emails and things like that. It's a bit more transactional stuff happening through the website. Councillor Wilkie: Yet over 90% of people are happy to pay electronically. That's right. Speaker 6: It completely is. It's an aging population. Councillor Wilkie: So they're tech savvy, but they still want to talk to someone.
02:54:00 Speaker 6: But, you know, if I took my mother, she would go online and do her banking online, but if she wanted to... If you were dealing with something that's towards you, she would ring up. So you get a lot of that. Councillor Jurisevic: I reckon at the moment, through COVID-19, it's probably spiking people are desperate to talk to somebody because they're going to talk to her. I'm excited. Speaker 5: Yeah. Speaker 6: So the number of calls actually, as soon as COVID happened, actually went down a lot, but it is building up again because people are anxious or wanting to talk to people. So it's been a bit. Councillor Jurisevic: We did the Executive Services Department report, didn't we, Tom? Yeah, we did. Speaker 6: I said just notice you haven't got a move or a second. Councillor Jurisevic: I was out. Speaker 6: Oh, it's Franklin. Franklin. Franklin. That's right. Councillor Jurisevic: I'm just going to say before we finalise this item, because this committee isn't normally telecast, it's normally one that people come in to view and all the rest of it, I just thought we might explain moving and seconding of these items and what happens from here. It's not that we have approved these at this level.
02:55:00 This is just a recommendation going forward from this committee to either the General Committee for items that have been referred on or to the Audit Committee for ratification after Council and final decision making. People understand that these are decisions that have been formalised here at this process. It's just to acknowledge. It's just to acknowledge and accept the recommendation of the committee to go forward for finalisation at either the Audit Committee or further discussion at the General Committee before these items are signed off on by the Council at this month's series of meetings. So if I could get a mover for the operational plan, Amelia, I'll second that. There may be no further discussion or questions. All in favour? Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Again, that item then gets referred to the Audit Committee. For finalisation for this month. Thank you, Catherine. Speaker 1: Thank you.