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00:00:00 Councillor Jurisevic: Good afternoon everybody, welcome to the Services and Organisation Committee meeting for September. Before we begin, I'd like to pay respects to the traditional owners of the land upon which we meet, the Kabi Kabi or Kabi Kabi people, and acknowledge their Elders past, present and emerging. Everybody in attendance? Tom's in the audience as well. There's no presentations or deputations today? No. Reports. Item 1. Have I got the right? Yes I have. Item 1, 2020 Delegations of Authority Annual Review. Speaker 1: Any questions for? Speaker 2: Does anyone stay with us? Mayor Stewart: I just wanted to, could you explain a bit about the four new delegations and they're here on page 6.
00:01:00 Is that in line with other councils or what was the reasoning for that or have we missed it before? Speaker 3: It's not that they've been missed before, we just saw the benefit in including them this year. I also consulted with the managers that would be dealing with those powers directly. So planning for the Planning Environment Court and even the Coastal Protections one. As well as the Public Records one, they discussed that with the IT manager and they just saw the benefit in including them this year. Mayor Stewart: So what does it specifically entail for us as we delegate to Brett? Speaker 3: Yes, so these ones are for you to on-delegate to Brett directly. And then once that happens, it's between Brett and the other managers and directors to discuss how they're on-delegated to the staff. Okay. For them to be able to. Speaker 2: So I think your question was more about what are you delegating in those? Yeah, yeah, basically. Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:02:00 So they're in Attachment 1 and that lists all of the powers that you can on-delegate. And a couple of them go into sort of the operational areas that they need to be able to do some of the functions that they do under their business. Yep. So. Councillor Jurisevic: Has there been anything? Since DMA automation has come up that has required matters under these acts to come before Council that couldn't have been handled? Speaker 1: The necessity coming before Council? Councillor Jurisevic: I can't recall anything under. No. Apart from the Planning Environment Court appeals that Public Records, Coastal Management would have been under policy or strategy. And the Heritage Act the same. That's probably the only time we've seen those before Council. Yeah. Are there any specific matters that may have, that could have popped up that required delegation? Speaker 4: If you like, I'll help you with that one. Yeah, yeah. Council, we report the delegations annually and update them.
00:03:00 So in that situation, we identify new delegations that might be as a result of changes or new to legislation or new legislation. Okay. We also update the existing delegations and we also put in an attachment which gives you the current delegations that are ongoing going forward. At any time, while they are delegated to the CEO, we also update the existing delegations to the CEO. Council can still make a decision on them. It doesn't mean that Council can't make a decision on them as well. Speaker 2: I'll probably just add to that. There have been a couple of years where I've said I don't want delegations from Council. Yeah. We appreciate the nature of that. Yeah. And some of those, for example, are where there's Council has the power under the Acquisition of Land Act to take land or to acquire land. And I've said, no, that should be a Council decision. That's a very serious thing. Yeah. There are other ones where even though Council has delegated powers, we'll go, well, actually, that should be a Council decision. Even though I've got the power to do it, that doesn't mean that Council doesn't have the power. And sometimes I'll say, no, that should be a Council decision. Councillor Lorentson: So you're talking about Council allowing a delegation to be revoked or amended or
00:04:00 you're saying? Speaker 2: No, no. So when something's delegated, so the Council's got the power to do things. Yeah. If it delegates it, the Council still has that power to do it. It doesn't give that power away. It basically gives that power to me to also exercise that delegation if I need to or to exercise that decision. Yeah. Councillor Jurisevic: More often than not, it's been a matter of something that needs to be dealt with before a Council meeting can occur. Yeah. To give you the opportunity to . Speaker 2: And that's probably the easiest way to do it is by the way of example. So if we're going to buy $25,000 worth of gadgets or whatever they might be, you need a Council resolution that will be better off having staff make that decision. So the Council's given me authority to spend up to $1 million. Yeah. I very exceptionally will exercise that delegation for anything above $250,000. So anything to do with a tender, I could do it with over $250,000 or less than a million.
00:05:00 I normally do that. I'll say no. Let's put it through Council with that type of money and we should do that. If it's an urgent matter or something that's not of public import, for example, it might be buying a whole bunch of PCs or something, you know, computers or something like that. But I might exercise the delegation that's more administrative in nature. But generally, for that type of thing, I'll say that Council would make the decision. But if it's a speed issue, we've done it also where we're trying to get a capital works program out the door and we've got some contracts left and we've got to start some roadworks or whatever it might be. Okay. Well, I'll exercise that delegation and we'll get things moving quickly. So that's the way I tend to do it. Councillor Lorentson: Are there any financial implications to this process? Speaker 3: In what way? Councillor Lorentson: Other than administrative type costs, are there any other costs associated with these delegation powers? No. Speaker 4: No. No. No. No.
00:06:00 No. No. No. I just want to jump us back to that point of Brett's, it's for operational efficiency and effectiveness, so that we can an ... undertake what the, carry on businesses we need to without having to require a Council resolution for everything. Can you imagine if Council had to make decisions on everything? So really it's about the efficiency and effectiveness for the decision making, and the other is that there is no, short answer is no. There aren't the financial implications. No. It just ... It really goes back to, I suppose, the next steps when powers are delegated to the CEO. The CEO then may on delegate to staff, but it's only the delegation and the authorisation. It's not actually dollars and the limitations around that. Speaker 3: There is the financial delegations side of things, though, too, that is on delegated from the CEO down to other staff. And they have a nominated financial amount that Brett approves. Speaker 2: So this explains that. So the council's given me a million dollar spending limit in the length of the contract.
00:07:00 And I'll pick Deborah as an example. So I then on delegate, not a million dollars, but depending on the level of the position and the role, every staff member has a big list about what their delegation limit is, what they can depend up to. So I'm doing it from memory, it was $100,000 as a director. And someone like Cassie, have you got one? So, you know, buying stationery or whatever it might be. You don't spend it all at once? No. And then I sign those off and they get audited as well. And then we also set up in our computer system so that the order online is then matched to what that spending limit is. So staff members who have a spending limit of $2,500, they can't actually put an order into our IT system for $5,000. Councillor Jurisevic: And the Mayor Jordan's committee has given information on that in the past, picking up where that doesn't need to be aligned. Delegation doesn't need to be aligned. Speaker 4: And we have a register of those delegations.
00:08:00 Councillor Wilkie: It's all within the budget set by the council. There's tenders, awarding for budgets, the Capital Works Program. We're talking about tenders for projects identified and ratified by the council in the Capital Works Program. Not outside of that. No, no, yeah. And delegations basically cover, enable the thousands of transactions that occur every day by staff, allow council to operate without decisions of council orders. Yeah. Yeah. Councillor Jurisevic: Otherwise we'd be signing off on every invoice that comes in. Councillor Wilkie: Yeah, that's right. I had a question on page 11. There's the delegation of authority on the Coastal Protection and Management. It just seemed to be a contradictory thing. Perhaps you can explain it for me. You said, power to appeal against the chief executive's decision to give a Coastal Protection notice to council. So does that give the staff power to appeal against the CEO's decision? Speaker 2: No, the chief executive is the chief executive of the department, not the council. Councillor Lorentson: Not that. Councillor Wilkie: Thank you. Right. Speaker 2: Okay.
00:09:00 Councillor Lorentson: On page 8, Deb, so as I'm reading all this, there's inherent risk involved in all these delegations, including legal non-compliance issues, and I think on page 8, you mentioned that, that if the delegations are not current or council operators operate outside of their delegated authority, decisions and actions may be unauthorised and subject to legal challenge. Do these delegations form part of our risk management framework? Speaker 4: I'm trying to remember if it is actually identified in our risk register. Councillor Jurisevic: Well, it's certainly brought up in the audit if somebody's operating outside their delegated authority. Speaker 2: I can't recall if they're specifically referred in the risk register. What I can say is that they're reviewed by the Queensland Audit Office every year as part of the legal framework to make sure that we have registers that are up-to-date and they're contemporary
00:10:00 in terms of what other councils would have if they're registered, and they also then look at the alignment between the financial limits for delegation and assistance as well. They check that every year. Speaker 4: That gives some control because unless they align, you wouldn't be able to proceed, so that there is alignment between the financial systems. Councillor Jurisevic: The only challenge may be where somebody's in a temporary position and has a delegation to spend more than they normally do when they go back to their position, that that delegation is rescinded. Speaker 4: However, that should be adjusted, so, you know, we would do, we would adjust that. So. The other with risk is that. Okay. So this also presents an opportunity because for us to be able to monitor all of the changes in the legislation and pick up all of the things that we might like to look at in delegations, it's a mammoth task. So that's why King & Company provides this service for councils and it gives us some reassurance that they've reviewed all of these and these are the ones that they put forward
00:11:00 to recommend for council to consider. There are some that we don't take on, but they provide that service for all councils because it's an incredibly big task to do this. And we are required to do it on an annual basis under the Act. Most councils don't. Beg your pardon? Speaker 2: Most councils don't do it annually. No. Unfortunately. Speaker 4: No. But there is a requirement in the Act for that to happen. So. Councillor Jurisevic: And the central reason is for operational matters to be efficiently undertaken. Speaker 2: Yeah. It's also sort of a bit of a shock that we're having different pieces of legislation operating on that. Yeah. It's very complex. Yeah, it is. Councillor Lorentson: But it's the world. Sorry, just one more question. I couldn't find any temporary delegations. I was looking for just delegations given to the CEO as a result of COVID. Things like if there's a lockdown or if we're not able to form a quorum. Is that something that was considered?
00:12:00 We did that. Speaker 2: There was a council decision in the last meeting of the previous council in March 2020, which gave authority to me to make those decisions. So it was a temporary delegation that only went through to the first council meeting of the new council. So the council still has all those decisions to make if we go back into that place. Or the new council, if we then need to move quickly, can decide to delegate to me at that time. Councillor Lorentson: And that's in relation to the new council? That's in relation to bushfires as well. I was looking for... Speaker 2: Well, there's actually powers for a car under the emergency services legislation that we can make along with the police through the start of the management process. We need to do that for them. Speaker 4: Yeah, but not in here. Speaker 2: I think we ended up in, I'll use the term, a Victorian situation over the next couple of months. We'd have to walk out of doing something like that. Yeah. Yeah.
00:13:00 Councillor Jurisevic: Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, it's months of work, yes, well done, thank you, thank you so much, future CEO, you're making that, thanks man, see ya, Ash, Clive II, Noosa Legislative Centre, full year report to the 30th of June, Cathy Busy.af, yes, I'm here on behalf of all of my team today, so, fire away with all your hard-hitting questions, and I'll do my best to answer them, questions, anyone? I won't see if any of the councillors are raising their hands, oh, they're all silent, fire away Amelia, you can get a start, you can get a start. Councillor Lorentson: I'm page 22. Can you explain materials and services, what activities and services are absorbed in that amount here?
00:14:00 Speaker 1: Certainly, so typically in materials and services we've got all of our utilities, they're a major expense in there, building maintenance, plant and equipment maintenance, cleaning, any contractor expenses, purchases of stock for the facilities that have a retail shop, cost of goods sold for cafes, Councillor Lorentson: there's a variety of other minor accounts in there, but also include the electricity bill and the water bill, yeah, electricity, water, yeah, and another, if you could clarify, depreciation and amortisation, I looked that up, but I'd like to understand from your perspective, yeah, yeah, so amortisation probably doesn't happen very much in our facilities, depreciation is the main one across our buildings, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and Speaker 1: and power value assets, amortization, where you're writing off the cost as something like software or something that's a little less intangible, promotion, yeah, so we do have a little bit of that, I think in our IT overheads, but other than that there wouldn't, wouldn't be any, so vast majority of that would be depreciation, okay.
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00:15:00 Councillor Jurisevic: I've got a question are we've got depreciation, where do we, where do we sit on the life, of the shimmer, where it sits in its depreciation, ? Speaker 1: I don't actually know what the asset register is saying at the moment in terms of its useful life and how much further it's got to it. Councillor Jurisevic: Because it would be a pain in the ass. Speaker 1: They do do regular revaluations as well, which then bumps things back up. And that's where you might sometimes see depreciation can be quite stable for a couple of years. Councillor Jurisevic: As you revamp an area, the depreciation changes an area. Speaker 1: Or if the overall cost of the building is revalued, I think that can go up because the depreciation you need to allow to replace it will need to scale accordingly. So I try to keep out of the dark arts of accounting and leave that to Trent and the team. But that's my basic understanding of it. Speaker 2: Maybe another way of asking that question, Joe, is that in terms of the overall condition of this particular asset register centre,
00:16:00 obviously we've done the floors and everything and all that sort of stuff, but the overall frame? Councillor Jurisevic: You read exactly where I was heading with the questioning. What needs doing next? How far are we? What needs doing next? What are we what are we up for? Speaker 1: The floor, the stadium floors would be the next major piece of expenditure on the building if we were going to replace like the like that we need to be doing some thinking before we get to that point with regard to master planning for that precinct and whether there be a reconfiguration of the stadium and other uses, all that kind of stuff. So that's certainly in the pipeline over the next few years to do some of that thinking, but probably within the next five to 10 years. You'd be looking at major reverb, I would have thought, but at the library up in 20 years, yeah, so it's 27 years this year, yeah, so it's getting up to 30 years, yeah, actually, I think it's a great result that we're only $9,000 behind the net budget position based on the fact that March, April, May, we only closed for three months, you know, I think that's a really great result.
00:17:00 Yeah, I mean, that speaks volumes. Yeah, how well the facility was going and credit to the team there prior to March, obviously, it's a bit of a downer to finish with the final three months in that regard. Councillor Lorentson: But that was based on a record high in 2018 and 2019. So you take that year away, you actually performed really well. Speaker 1: Yeah, it's been trending up, which is really pleasing to see. Mayor Stewart: And I think it shows how necessary it is for the community. Absolutely. Speaker 2: Yeah, resource and what you utilize. Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Speaker 2: So what's happened since 30 June, this report goes through there, what are you seeing in terms of the last two months, the numbers there? Speaker 1: So most of our services are back on offer. There's not much that we're not doing, but the numbers are definitely down.
00:18:00 So, you know, maybe 30, 40% lower than what we would otherwise expect at this time of year for those programs, which is understandable. Councillor Wilkie: Is that due to social distancing requirements or people are reluctant to engage in that? Speaker 1: Yeah, not much of it's because of restrictions that we've got on numbers. We're pretty fortunate at both the Leisure Centre and the Aquatic Centre that they're very large facilities. So we're not trying to program small spaces that are heavily constrained, but it's more just about people's willingness to come back out and do what they used to do, I think. And possibly some of that's economic impact as well, whether people are making a choice not to spend money on things that are ultimately a discretionary expense. But it'll be interesting to see how that progresses, you know, through till Christmas, and then we'll wait and see where we are and see how the second half of the year goes compared to a normal year. Speaker 5: I think it also speaks to the general anxiety in the community. So while people might report that they want to get back into activity, we can see through our facilities and our community organisations that when it actually comes to it, they are highly anxious.
00:19:00 They might come along for one or two sessions and then go, no, I'm feeling uncomfortable for somebody's needs, or they were too close to me, and we're seeing people then back out. Councillor Jurisevic: I'm wondering if an element of that is because it's an internal activity, the outdoor sports centre being in the Aquatic Centre as well. Speaker 5: Yeah, so it seems to be across the board, and every time there's another case, you can rip us through it. Councillor Lorentson: You mentioned in the report that the cessation of the mini library and decrease in large events attributed to lower numbers. Can you explain that a little bit? Speaker 1: Yeah, so when the library was being refurbished in the prior financial year, we had a mini library set up at the Leisure Centre. So when people were visiting that, we were recording that as an attendance number at the Leisure Centre, just to get an indication of how many people were coming in and out of the building.
00:20:00 Right. So, yeah. So that obviously boosted the numbers significantly. And then we have different events that kind of fluctuate over the years at the Leisure Centre. So we've had Noosa Alive a couple of times have run a large opera event, which has brought, you know, several hundred people down. We've had book fests and conventions. There was some kind of meditation. Councillor Jurisevic: The book fest didn't make it this year, did it? Speaker 1: Yeah, they had pencilled it in for October, but they've decided to push it back to May again next year. But certainly our attendance numbers in our core business in terms of group fitness, stadium sports, we're tracking really, really well, particularly group fitness through to the end of the third quarter. Councillor Jurisevic: And the over 65s? Speaker 1: Yeah, so the ageing one. Councillor Jurisevic: The ageing program is going really, really well. Speaker 1: Yeah, had a great response to that. Councillor Jurisevic: Getting great feedback. Speaker 1: Yeah, a really good partnership.
00:21:00 Mayor Stewart: Are we going to continue on with that? Speaker 1: Yeah, my understanding is that that will be kind of an ongoing offering. Terrific. Yeah, it's great to see, you know, the community development team be able to partner with us at the facilities and then also Noosa community support with their aged care focus, kind of all working together to support the community. Councillor Jurisevic: And a number of activities transition through the Leisure Centre as they start as fledgling organisations or fledgling activities and they grow and expand. Pickleball's looking to expand. Yeah. And move out of there as probably the next one coming. Yeah. Basketball sort of grows and goes through phases. Yeah. Speaker 1: And we're seeing some really positive outcomes as well for carers. So for Noosa community support clients who would typically go to the centre for a day of respite or if we're taking them out on the road for an outing to actually connect with their carers and give them a chance to network with us and other carers in a similar situation and get some exercise down at the Leisure Centre, then they're getting that kind of support group and introduction to exercise as well.
00:22:00 Right. Yeah. Super positive for that one. Councillor Lorentson: Thank you. And you have some terrific staff down there too, Ash. Yeah. Speaker 1: Absolutely. Really. And they're part of the success. Yeah. No, they are the success. Councillor Lorentson: They are. Speaker 1: Good on you. I'll just get you to write the report at the end of the year. Councillor Wilkie: Just on staff, you mentioned that between March and June when the Leisure Centre was closed down, the staff were redeployed. Yeah. Doing a whole variety of really interesting things, but including helping out community organisations. Yep. You mentioned there's a food outlet. Yeah. And so how did the staff find that experience? Speaker 1: Yeah. Overall, really positive. Not everyone went over there, but the staff that did go over to help out found it to be really rewarding, I think. And it was great to see that it was something that obviously helped our staff out at a time where they needed to keep working. And we were able to help out a community organisation who was delivering a vital service, and the demand on that was increasing. And they'd also lost volunteers because of COVID. They were withdrawing from the services and demand was increasing.
00:23:00 So to be able to find something that worked really well for everyone was really pleasing. And my understanding is some of our staff have actually chosen to continue to volunteer their time there. Great. In some of those services because they enjoyed it so much and got so much out of it. Councillor Wilkie: Yeah. So in terms of their mental health, how would you say your staff are after the shutdown, as a result of the shutdown? Yeah. Speaker 1: Look, I think everyone goes through ups and downs for a variety of reasons, not just work-related reasons. It's really pleasing, obviously, now at the Aquatic Centre and the Leisure Centre to pretty much have services back to where we were. Ours are still down a little bit. So some staff probably aren't working quite as much as they would have. But we're doing all that we can to support them through. The team at the day are obviously more heavily impacted at the moment. But again, there's a really good story there where we've got a couple of the staff from there are actually working down at the Leisure Centre who have a bit of a staff shortage at the moment due to planned leave and some staff that are off on sick leave for a bit. So we've got a couple of the staff down there doing several shifts a week.
00:24:00 So the flexibility to work together and juggle things around has been really good. And we also have- Councillor Jurisevic: Cross-pollination. Cross-pollination. A variety is a good thing. Speaker 1: Yeah. And we still have one of the staff members from the J out there using our council van to deliver some of the meals. So picking up down in the Maroochydore and delivering out to our community to get meals out to those that need them. So that continues on and has been really positive and rewarding, I think. Working in some of our bushland reserves, weeding and planting as well. Speaker 2: How many meals has he delivered? Thousands. I don't know exactly how many. Speaker 1: Yeah. Councillor Jurisevic: Yeah. Speaker 2: I've got a question. I'll go far away. I'll go to Ash. I was going to ask this. One of the things when you look at these reports is you get to see the financials and also the number of attendees. And when you match those together, you can actually get a better understanding of value about what it costs per visit. So I asked Ash to put this together, which he's now done, to include this. I just want to talk and explain what this looks like.
00:25:00 It really shows the impact of COVID. So for example, this one, the financial was only down 9,000. The numbers are down. So the unit rate is a lot. But the number, the cost per visit has actually gone up. This helps identify that. Speaker 1: Yeah. So what we've got, where we talk about the operating expenses. So I guess, oh, sorry. This is net cost. So total expenses minus revenue gives us a net financial result. And we've got two different categories. So the net operating result is exclusive of depreciation and internal charges. And the reason why we don't include that in this metric is that they're actually out of the control of our facility coordinators. They can't determine what the depreciation is going to be. And they've got no control over the internal charges, which are the costs that are reallocated from head office, if you like, out to our facilities. But they can control utility consumption and staff costs and those material and services charges. So they're the lower columns. And then when you add in depreciation and internal charges, obviously the cost base
00:26:00 increases. So the cost per visit increases. But you can see, certainly for the operating costs for the NAC, we actually had a year, two years ago, where we generated a very small operating surplus. So total revenue was just ahead of operating expenditure there for the full year, which was the first time we'd ever done that. And it was an incredible result. So I guess you could say that that's certainly been flat, if not trending slightly down up until this year. You can see that the total cost per visit has been trending up, and that's predominantly to do with some of those depreciation and internal charges costs, which have changed over the years as well, depending on the methodology that's been used to allocate them. But you can certainly see the big spike this year. And at the NAC, it was the double whammy. So not just the COVID shutdown, but the two months at the start of financial year for our maintenance shutdown as well. So you've almost got 50% less attendance to share some of the costs.
00:27:00 And some of those costs do stay fairly fixed, regardless of whether you're open or not. The leisure centre, you can obviously see they're actually trending down. So from left to right, that's been trending down every year for the operating cost per visit, which is really pleasing, and has spiked again this year. But as you said earlier, Amelia, it's only marginally higher than a few years ago, even with three months missing, which is really good. And then the J, similar story there, that's reduced really pleasingly the last few years until this year, obviously, where it spiked back up. So I guess we use that metric because it's a really good way to determine value, not just on financial performance. But if the facility costs are the same to run each year, but we actually can increase the numbers through the door by 20% or 30%, then we're providing more value because more people are utilising the centre. So I should have included it earlier. So it's a bit of an oversight to not have it in the report. So apologies for that. But- Councillor Jurisevic: No, it's a good metric. Good metric. Yeah, it's fine. Thank you. Now, when you're getting down to not under a dollar a visit like you have at the NAP
00:28:00 there, that's 50 cents. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There'd be plenty of aquatic centres around the country that would love to have some metrics like that. Speaker 2: So of course, the aquatic centre also, we'll get to that in a moment, had to shut down earlier in the- Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, a bit of a double whammy there. Councillor Jurisevic: Yeah. Yeah. It's got to be double whammy because it's got to get more depreciation now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 1: Which is why we'll continue to split it into the two and look at the operating costs. Councillor Jurisevic: So I knew we'd be- that's why I asked the question about the leisure centre. I knew we'd forward money into the aquatic centre. I knew the leisure centre was coming to sort of 30 years. So I was- Yeah. Speaker 2: Yeah. Just if I can judge this, this sort of metric that's quite good when you look at things like Kingland Park, where you go, okay, what's the total cost, how many people will use it there, but what's the value? It's not just about what's on the cost, it's about the value of the people who use it. Councillor Jurisevic: That'll be a difficult one to ascertain, the numbers, the number of users. Speaker 2: So that's basically an idea of that.
00:29:00 Count on that. Anyway, so just an idea as to how you look at it, not just the cost. Speaker 5: Yeah. Councillor Jurisevic: Good outcome under 20%. Yeah, well done. Thank you. Anything further? Can I have a mover to accept the report? Thank you, Amelia, Senator. Thanks, Frank. Anyone else? Final three, the Newspaper Product Centre. What are you talking about? Annual four-year report to the 30th of June. Any questions for discussion? Councillor Lorentson: St Andrews pill opening. Positive and negative. You've had enough time now to ascertain whether it's had a positive or negative impact? Yeah. What do you think, Ash? Speaker 1: It's still a little bit hard to determine because it opened, I think, just as we were trying to reopen from the maintenance closure. And it was a little bit unclear as to whether our numbers were down there because it was taking people a while to get back into the habit after having a couple of months off over winter.
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00:30:00 I think learn to swim is probably the program that's most impacted. So there are swimming lessons and we expected that we said, you know, if you live closer to Bridging Springs and you do the aquatic centre and you're just looking for a swim school that's nice and close and convenient, there probably aren't too many people that are going to drive straight past one to get to another unless they're already at the facility and, you know, they've got a great connection. So we expected that to have maybe about a 15% impact, which broadly aligned with the numbers. In terms of general... Attendance and income, obviously, we'll see a reduction in some of the revenue that we would have got from St Andrews directly for their school swimming programs. Some of the water polo will transition over time, but that's not necessarily a bad thing because it actually frees up some space for other users at the centre. So I think it will have some kind of financial impact on us, but we're hoping that over the next couple of years, the spaces that open up because of that, they'll build by...
00:31:00 Councillor Jurisevic: The opportunity in the, yeah, what's the opportunity? Mayor Stewart: Nice question. Why have we lost so much money in the loan to swim revenue? 604, 689, 703. Speaker 1: Sorry, which table are you looking at there? Mayor Stewart: Sorry, I'll be back on page 29. Revenue. Speaker 1: Sorry, the, again, the accounting dark arts, the negative is actually revenue in this table. Mayor Stewart: Okay, so it shouldn't be in brackets. Speaker 1: Well, the accountants will tell you it should be, but it is confusing. Mayor Stewart: Yeah, okay. Speaker 1: Yes, so everything in the revenue table there is income. It's not at loss. We don't have, this table isn't broken up to show expenses allocated at the same activity level. We can run some of those reports, and certainly if you've got an interest, I'm more than happy to step you through it at a more detailed level. Speaker 2: Swim revenue is a positive for the bottom line. Councillor Jurisevic: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, learn to swim. It does look good with everything in brackets, doesn't it? Councillor Jurisevic: It does, yeah. Yeah. It's costing us a fortune. Yes, it's going to.
00:32:00 Speaker 1: It does get confusing because then some of the tables, you've got brackets around things that truly are a deficit as well. So it takes a little while to get used to that when looking at these reports. Councillor Lorentson: So, Asher, the Leisure Centre, $9,453 loss, which appears something that can be recovered. Yep. Aquatic Centre, it's $102,362. Yep. What's the likelihood of that being recovered over the next, say, six months? Unlikely? Speaker 1: I wouldn't say it's highly likely over the next six months, but if you give us a couple of years, we'll do our best to figure it back. Look, I think it's... Obviously, none of us could have budgeted for a COVID shutdown, and that's always going to have a big impact. And I guess that's why we've had some tough decisions to make in terms of how do we control costs as much as possible. And, you know, we'll need to, as the COVID situation hopefully stabilises, we'll need to do some really careful forecasting for what does lie ahead
00:33:00 and have a look at how we operate these facilities as efficiently as possible. Councillor Lorentson: Have we leased? Have we leased out the cafe, Ash? Speaker 1: We haven't gone to... We haven't done the full program that we normally would have because of the situation we're in at the moment. So we do have operators in there continuing under a fairly temporary arrangement until it's a better time to actually go to market to get the best deal for us there. So hopefully... Speaker 2: And it tends to lease, not to run. Speaker 1: Yes. So we haven't run... Speaker 2: It's been very good, those calendar breaks. Speaker 1: Yeah, we haven't run that directly ourselves for a number of years, and... Councillor Lorentson: Why is that? Is there an opportunity there for a council to run it, just... Speaker 1: Look, when we did run it, it was one of those services that probably is in our core business, and when you start to staff an area like that, with that level of variety that's expected in food and beverage and the hours that are required there,
00:34:00 then all the staff would be council staffed. Our employment arrangements perhaps aren't as flexible as some of the hospitality arrangements that reflect the hours of that industry, so... Councillor Lorentson: It's still a long event, yeah. Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really the complexity, and we have actually been previously under that contract, when it's leased out, we are making a return on that. So it is a revenue stream coming in. We're not paying somebody to be there. They're paying us to operate that business. So, for us, it's simpler to have somebody come in and give us a guaranteed sum, without us having to worry about running a cafe seven days a week, so... Councillor Jurisevic: From memory, the last leaseholder actually also ran another food and beverage outlet somewhere else, so they complemented each other. Speaker 1: Yeah, so there's potential for that. Councillor Jurisevic: They bring their food, you know, prepare their food at one outlet and bring them in between the two outlets. Speaker 1: Yeah, so, no, certainly the intent is that, you know, it'd be a very difficult time to go to market at the moment without patronage being at the numbers that it normally is, and without certainty on, you know, when it will pick back up, so...
00:35:00 Anything else? Speaker 2: Just, Ash, the master planning process, which you're looking at, when are you looking to start that again, wait until things settle down, or have you got a time frame to... Speaker 1: No, look, it's certainly something that... In terms of this master plan, I don't think we're envisaging going out to an external contractor to develop something like they might if you were doing it from scratch and looking at major facility redevelopments. It's really a matter of us internally putting down some of our ideas on what we think are possibilities over the next ten years, and then starting to have discussions about prioritising and possible costs and... Speaker 2: Commercial leases on that side. Sorry? So, commercial lease or allied health or whatever it might be, all that stuff. Speaker 1: Yeah, that would certainly be in there. So, look, I'd be hoping over the next six months that we'd get it to a point where we could come back and have some discussions, and then, you know, that might then lead us to a point where we say, okay, well, let's do some more detailed work on these different ideas, and that may be where we go out and get some external input into the numbers and modelling and whatnot, but...
00:36:00 Councillor Jurisevic: I'd hope that your master planning process will tie in with a precinct plan for that whole Sunshine Beach area, from the incorporating the school, the legislature, the bicentennial hall, the rugby club, and the opportunity for schools, and Giraween, potentially, as a giant, one conglomerate, under a master plan as well. Speaker 1: Always happy to join in on that kind of stuff at the moment. Councillor Jurisevic: It might give direction and purpose, and it also may give linkages that you may not have with the other organisations that are close by. Speaker 1: Yeah, look, it's, you know, it's obvious that there's some real benefit having a number of similar organisations close by, and the ability to share some of those facilities, and, you know, when you've got visiting sports teams and carnivals and all that kind of stuff, you know, it is quite central, so, yeah, something that probably should be looked at. Mayor Stewart: Again, the redeployment, right, you asked about the, yeah, again, these guys got redeployed, some of you staff. Yes, yep. Speaker 1: Similar story to...
00:37:00 Yeah, so it was quite similar across the facilities. Yeah. So, at times, there were jobs that could be done around the facilities, just in terms of, you know, a bit of tidying up and cleaning and, you know, sorting out the shed and all those kind of things. We did help some of the other community groups around as well, so some of the sports clubs that were looking for a little bit of maintenance or assistance, so, yeah. Councillor Wilkie: And just looking at the figures of the full year attendance comparison from 2-15 to 2-19-20. Yep. You hit a real high in 2-16-17, is that variation, that slight decrease to 2-18-19, is that considered significant? Speaker 1: Oh, I wouldn't say it's significant as a percentage of the total numbers, yeah. So, about 1%. Yeah, you know, it's probably a couple of percent. Councillor Wilkie: And was that, like, the factor that Amelia mentioned, the opening of the St Andrew's Pool, or was that... Where did that happen? Speaker 1: No, that would have been more in 19-20, so the financial year we're reporting on. Councillor Wilkie: Was it just a bumper summer in 16-17 or something?
00:38:00 Speaker 1: Yeah, well, look, as you say, it's probably only 2%. The drop off from 16-17 to 18-19 is probably, you know, barely 2%, so you'd expect some significant... Some kind of fluctuation, yeah. Mayor Stewart: Would it have anything to do with the Olympics? You know, everyone watches the Olympics, gets into sport. You think about Rio, you know, I'm going to learn to swim, I'm going to get my kids into swimming. Speaker 1: Possibly. Speaker 5: What date was it you actually closed, though? Was it June 2019? Speaker 1: Oh, sorry, 2018-19 is missing a week. Yeah. Yeah, because we did shut on the 24th of June. So, you know, that's probably a couple of thousand visits, but... Yeah. I mean, we've probably been... Always been monitoring the financial performance pretty closely, because it is possible to have less people, but more revenue coming in if you have a higher yield per member or customer. They decide that they want to do more activities, instead of buying the base membership, they, you know, upgrade to the full memberships. They want to swim and gym and aqua aerobics. Councillor Jurisevic: To write clear, a positive result at the Olympics or a World Cup or a particular sport does
00:39:00 bring an influx of interesting... Mayor Stewart: Tennis is a little bit more popular in Australia than in January. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. Councillor Wilkie: Because the sales revenue was at a peak in 16-17 as well. Speaker 1: Yeah. Retail sales. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That kind of 16-17, 17-18, I think, was probably about as good as it gets. It was probably a perfect alignment of a few different factors there. I think town was just really, really busy. People were spending money without a worry. Probably had some good weather. That can be an impact at the NAC as well, depending on when you get... Weather definitely has a big impact at the NAC. Spurts of weather and how they fall can impact, but... Councillor Jurisevic: Yeah. Speaker 1: It's very hard to draw real conclusions from 19-20 because of the interruption. Of course. Of course. Not knowing how long it would take for numbers to get back to normal after closures as well. Okay. Councillor Wilkie: Do you think that was better?
00:40:00 Yeah. Okay. Councillor Jurisevic: Well, good. I can have a moment to accept the report. I'll move it. Awesome. Thank you, Amelia. Secondly, Clare. Thank you. Item six. This is a community support full-year report. Mayor Stewart: The J. Speaker 2: The J. The J. The J. I missed five. Page 36. Councillor Jurisevic: Oh, scanning through. Scanning through. Went too fast. Speaker 2: Oh, missed both of them. Councillor Jurisevic: Sorry. I've gone past both of them. Speaker 2: Page 36. Councillor Wilkie: Excuse me. It's just impressive, on page 36, the list of customers that we deal with at the J. The J. It's really engaged with a lot of community groups. Speaker 1: A lot of variety there. Yeah. It's really pleasing to see how well utilised it has become compared to probably five years ago. Total occupancy, number of days that the theatre's utilised is really, really pleasing. It was certainly getting to the point where it was difficult to fit groups in when they wanted to book. We had people booking two or three years in advance for some of the key dates and groups fighting over the dates that they wanted.
00:41:00 Speaker 5: I think this one's a really tough one for the staff because they were on track for a really good year and we've been able to get the other facilities up and running, but the J. During the limited activities, they put so much effort into it. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. It's been a record year. Speaker 2: Probably the best way to look at that is you have a look at the graphs on page 37, the four-year attendance, and you can see that trend going from 55,000 back to 14,000, 15,000 through to 90,000. Councillor Jurisevic: Amazing. Yeah. Yeah. We also expanded the seating. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 2: Probably would have been on track to break that this year. Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I did actually do a little bit of stuff on normalizing the revenue. Gets a little bit tricky again because of the timing of payments and whether you've got more shows in the first or second half of the year. But on a normalized, a very basic normalized level, we would have been on track for record revenue. So 17, 18 again was kind of our peak of the day. We did talk. I remember after that year, we talked a bit about the fact that we thought it might slow
00:42:00 down a little bit. The economy kind of tied in. Town slowed down a little bit, perhaps. But yeah, I was pretty confident we were going to break 700,000 again in total revenue this year. And I think we were $50,000 up or something at the end of February. Yeah. Speaker 2: We looked at that graph on the same page. It was 650,000 probably in the first eight months of the year compared to 595,000 three or four years ago. Yeah. Councillor Lorentson: So what is seating capacity for 66? What is the seating capacity at the moment? What numbers? Speaker 1: So our total seating capacity is normally 402 if we have the mezzanine area. Oh, okay. Councillor Lorentson: I've added the 50 capacity separate meeting space for people. Okay. Yeah. Speaker 1: Oh, okay. So yeah, we've got three. So basically in the theater, we've got 338, which is the flat seating and then the tiered seating. And then we've got another 64 up in the mezzanine area, which we don't always activate. But if somebody's got a show that's going to sell out, we can activate that up on the
00:43:00 upper mezzanine. So let's call it 400. Councillor Lorentson: What is allowed to be seated at? Speaker 1: Yeah. So the COVID safe plan that governs the J... What do I think? Councillor Lorentson: 60. Speaker 1: They talk about you can have either one person per four square meters or 50% of your seating capacity, whichever is greater. But then the caveat on that is that you still need to be able to maintain one and a half meters between different groups that are booked separately. So in theory, it sounds all right to begin with. You say, okay, well, 400 seats, 50% of that's 200 people. We could probably do that. But then when you look at how the seating is configured, if somebody's sitting in this row, you have to have space in the row in front and the row behind and to the side of them. And if people are buying tickets together, that's okay. You can group six people together. But again, you've then got to have the row in front and the row behind. So we reckon it's probably about 20%, 20 to 25%, depending on how many people you can actually get to book together. So 100, kind of best case, probably a little bit lower if you don't have large numbers
00:44:00 of people booking together. Councillor Lorentson: And they can't break even on that number count? Speaker 1: No. I mean, we'd be more than happy to have an event at the J in the theatre if it was viable for the person or the group that was hiring it. But at this point, there's not many around where it is viable. We are looking at a couple of end of year events for some of the local dance groups or the schools who are considering putting on, say, maybe a Friday night, a Saturday night. And because they may be able to sell groups of 10 or 12, and then parents can work together to sit together. Maybe the numbers are slightly more viable. But for a touring performance, which is predominantly what we have for the larger ticketed events. A, a lot of them can't tour at the moment because they're coming out of Victoria or New South Wales and coming up the eastern seaboard, which they can't do. But even if they could get a tour, they can't do it. They can't get here for several hundred tickets and have to pay for theatre hire and the
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00:45:00 staffing costs and the artists. So it's unfortunate that it just doesn't stack up. Speaker 5: It's also that for some of those events, a key component of that is the bar. And under the current arrangements, if you operate a stage, it's got to be seated. And it's significant, the sales. Yes. People, the ad, the complexity of trying to get to the bar. It's not just in our theatre, but in anything here. Yeah. They're really struggling. Councillor Jurisevic: Yeah. The future of the day. Master plan wise, thoughts for the future? Expansion? More storage? Speaker 1: So we've had a couple of the rooms on the storage front. Flight hours? Councillor Jurisevic: More seating? Bigger stage? What are we aiming for? What do we need to get those touring events in? 500 seats? Speaker 1: Look, I think 400 was working pretty well. There's no doubt that some shows where if you had 500 to 600, they'd sell out.
00:46:00 But whether the additional cost of building that can be offset by ticket sales and additional operating costs, it's not for me to make the final call on where value lies. But I'd suggest that it'd probably be difficult to make the numbers stack up. But venues in its nature typically don't break even. No. Well, even in its current format. Yeah. You know, it's kind of 200, 250. There's no operating loss plus the depreciation internal charges. So it's very much a community service. It's a great community service, but the bigger it is, probably the more it costs to fund it. I think, you know, what we'll be focusing on now is just trying to get back somewhere near what we were. And the reality probably is that that's going to take another couple of years to rebuild where we were. We're looking at replacing the seating at the moment, which would be great, because that is 12 years old and we do get quite a few comments on it's not the most comfortable seating around. So that would be great. But we've done the PA and the sound desk in the last 12 months, which was really good.
00:47:00 We've now done the major deck refurb. We've had some big wins with storage. We've got our lifting platform and the loading dock. We've got our personnel lift, which we can get up on the stage, which makes it much, much safer. Look, yeah, long term, five, 10 plus years, you know, whether it's co-location with gallery, larger theatre, green room, more seating, the possibilities are endless. I guess we're blessed. We do have land there. So we've got possibility and potential, but like everything, it's going to be, you know, what is it, Brett? When budgeting is where dreams meet reality. Councillor Jurisevic: It meets reality, yeah. Speaker 1: So we can dream big, but somebody's got to pay the bills. Councillor Jurisevic: You've got to have ambitions to turn around and throw things on the tape. Yeah. Mayor Stewart: Is there a recording, the Christian Outreach Centre, the big church there, has a recording studio in there? Do we have that at the J? No. Would we have the capacity, because I know they rent that out, they hire that out. Yeah. Would there be the capacity to do something like that?
00:48:00 Speaker 1: At the J? Yeah. My understanding of building a space like that is that it is quite expensive to kit it out properly. Councillor Jurisevic: We've got a couple of private operators that have got recording studios in there as well. Yeah. It's already in the market then. Mayor Stewart: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 1: I mean, we do have Noosa FM, obviously, at the J, who have some capacity to do community recording and broadcasting and whatnot, which is good, but it's probably not something we'd try that. Yeah. No. Speaker 5: We considered that as part of the work at Rupert Street. Yeah. So where we're converting the existing community house to an extension of the digital hard one, which we looked at there, was recording studio space. But it is very expensive. It's very expensive to fit out. And there's actually quite a few private providers here in Noosa. So it's something that we took off the books for now. To get it right is very expensive.
00:49:00 Okay. Councillor Wilkie: Ash, a year ago, the staff did a fantastic job when, at a moment's notice, they converted the J and also the leisure centre into an evacuation centre. Speaker 1: Almost exactly a year ago. Councillor Wilkie: You've mentioned that there was some learnings from that. Yeah. Can you talk generally about how things would be done differently if that, the same thing were to occur? What would you change? What have been the learnings? Speaker 1: I'm trying to get more notice this time. Well, I'm only mentioning because- So poor old Frank doesn't have to be the one who's taking registrations. Yeah. Look out, Ash. Councillor Wilkie: We've got an emergency coming. You mentioned that there were learnings from that. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I guess the registration process was something that we saw with large events when you've got hundreds of people turning up at short notice. It's really chaotic for everyone. So some of the learnings from that and some of the things we'll look to implement is if we have similar events moving forward, we'll actually just try to encourage people to come to the centres in the first instance to take shelter and become safe and then stop and
00:50:00 think about, okay, is there anywhere else that they might be able to go? Can they go to family or friends? So in that instance, and we found that anyway, that people were at the J for the first few hours and then they called around and figured out where they could go and they chose to go somewhere else. But the problem was we were trying to register everyone in amongst that, which caused large queues, as you know. So I think that would certainly help. We're looking at the registration process itself and by the time we got to the second or third or fourth event last year, we were starting to record entries straight into Guardian, which is the system that we use to manage the, well, disaster management as a whole, but also evacuation centres. Councillor Jurisevic: QR code scan as you come in and as you look? Speaker 1: Look, it's possible. I think Guardian are looking at some of that at the moment. Yeah. Yeah. Just thinking of what we're doing at sports and recreational activities now to sign in. Yeah. And that's also something we'll be looking at at facilities now to try and get away from
00:51:00 some of the data. Especially with COVID. Yeah. Mayor Stewart: I mean, there's additional challenges. Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, COVID's kind of a real game changer. We've got a meeting tomorrow to talk more about what are the impacts of that for evacuation Councillor Jurisevic: centres and what are the things we need to be mindful of. Speaker 1: So I think registration, some of our other learnings were, we will have a strong preference to try and get the two or two major evac centres up and running and reach capacity before we try to activate some of the smaller ones, because you end up just spreading resources too thinly. In terms of- Benning? Yeah. Benning was another big learning. I think Brett was there at 1 AM dropping off his phone. He had a couple of messages with N bars and jamming fingers and- Absolutely, I remember that. Thinking about tapping somebody on the shoulder at 2 o'clock in the morning saying, oh, we've got a bed for you now. So it was actually out with James- Speaker 5: We've got good news for you for next time. Okay. Speaker 1: Yeah. It went out with James last week. He's the disaster management officer. And we've had a look at some options for getting our own stockpile of stretchers that are actually easy to set up and pack up and quite comfortable.
00:52:00 And looking at getting some storage where we've essentially got a shipping container where we can have a couple of hundred stretchers, pillows, mattresses, ready to go. Councillor Wilkie: Some of the more senior people had trouble getting up and down from the mattresses, so the stretchers would be much better. Speaker 1: So, yeah, bedding was a massive learning. I think food, you know, there were a few smaller learnings, but that probably functioned okay. There was no shortage of food, which was really pleasing. At the J specifically, the configuration of that centre is somewhat problematic when you run as an evacuation centre because you've got the different entry and exit points and split levels and, you know, nooks and crannies. So, again, that's where we probably have a preference for the leisure centre in the first instance and then talking about some of the other centres. So, but, you know, the pleasing learnings were the staff can do it and the community comes together and everyone chips in and helps out.
00:53:00 And if you're looking for a place where people can come and be safe and feel safe, then we can absolutely do that. And that's the main thing, so. Councillor Jurisevic: And it was done very well. Speaker 1: Yes, it was. Yeah, it must be a year to the year tomorrow. Speaker 5: Year to the year tomorrow. Speaker 1: Yeah. So, we had actually talked with some of the people at the J about we had a one-year anniversary and a few drinks down at the bar back at the J, but we can't do that at the moment, so we might have to do year two at the J, maybe. Councillor Jurisevic: Okay. Anybody further? Happy to move it. Who, Frank? Secretary of the Play. Mr. Clayburn. Thanks again. Councillor Wilkie: Final five. I need to declare a conflict of interest on the secretary of the Noosa Gymnastics Club who are a principal tenant at the Bicentennial Community Centre, and I'll leave the room. Thank you, Frank. Thank you.
00:54:00 Councillor Jurisevic: All good. Final five. I'll stay at the community centre for a year or four. Councillor Lorentson: Lease terms, Ash. When does the gymnastic and Montessori leases expire? Speaker 1: Off the top of my head, I don't actually know the dates. They're both reasonably long-term. Councillor Jurisevic: Montessori is the only fairly recent one. Speaker 1: Yeah, Montessori is actually, there's one lease in place with the ability to expand it to encompass the whole site, and that's the process we're going through at the moment. To incorporate the rear area in the lease, instead of just a higher arrangement. Yep. Councillor Jurisevic: The gym club will be fairly long, because they've just extended the hall. Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it was 10 years initially, plus options, so yeah, I don't actually know the date off the top of my head, but it's very much long-term lease. The gymnastics club are great, so they actually, the extension that was put onto that building, was it now 12, 18 months ago?
00:55:00 Maybe more. A bit more than that. Two years ago? Yeah. That was actually funded, so it was a million dollar expansion. The club put in half a million dollars of their own money, and then they got a matching grant from the state government, so Council didn't actually have to contribute anything to that expansion, despite the fact that it's our asset. So, yes, obviously the lease terms for them are such that they can get some kind of value for a little while out of that. Councillor Jurisevic: Did you pay for the water upgrade? Councillor Lorentson: During COVID, I note that the Noosa Gymnastics Club received rent relief from Noosa Council, and Montessori, who continued to operate during the period, did not. Can you elaborate? Speaker 1: So, we contacted Montessori and said, if you believe that you're being adversely impacted by this, in terms of you can't operate the school, or your numbers are significantly down, or people are taking their children away,
00:56:00 and therefore you're losing enrolments and fees, we're more than happy to talk to you about it. But given the nature of their funding, and they do get funding from the education department as well, as my understanding, for each child that's enrolled there, they didn't approach us and say that there was a need or justification for rent relief, whereas Noosa Gymnastics Club, like our facilities, had to shut down and couldn't operate at all. And obviously that meant they couldn't generate any revenue at all during that period, so. Councillor Lorentson: And that relief has expired, has it Ash? Speaker 1: Yeah, so now that they're back up and running in term three, the Gymnastics Club is starting back up, yes. Okay. Yep. Councillor Jurisevic: Anything further? No. Well, that goes. Can I move? I'm the player. We'll take it to Amelia. All in favour? Thank you. Kerry? Okay. Speaker 2: Councillor Wilkie. Councillor Jurisevic: Yeah, don't forget Ian.
00:57:00 As I said earlier, item six, nursing community support for year one. I'm sorry, I was flicking through. Cancel those questions. I'll ask the question. The impact of COVID on this place. Yeah. It would have been, I mean, all of these places, all of the aged care facilities have been challenged. I mean, this one would have been a very challenging. Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a really interesting one. You know, obviously dealing with some of the most vulnerable people in our community, but also those that really need the services to keep going. And then we're funded by state and federal funding. So obviously they had some guidelines for how they would like things delivered, but we are ultimately a council program.
00:58:00 So we also had some input into that. So yeah, there was this real tension between delivering services to those that are most vulnerable, but trying to find ways that we could do it because we didn't want to stop service delivery completely. So effectively, group activities stopped for a period of months there. Being the highest risk activity, but we found ways to continue to deliver services either one on one, calling up and just offering support over the phone, delivering shopping, instead of having clients head out to the shops with us, going and getting that for them and taking it back to their home. Still doing some of the building maintenance works outside, if that was a high priority, that was easy. Inside with precautions. Yeah, obviously there's been infection control measures and things like that. Screening to make sure that nobody's sick and the client hasn't been sick or been in a hotspot and all those kind of things. But the team have done tremendously well to get through that.
00:59:00 It is starting to get a little bit easier, although obviously we're very mindful of aged care and the risks that do present there and taking guidance from funding bodies and council's COVID team. But at this point part of- Councillor Jurisevic: So ongoing testing of staff and clients? Sorry? Ongoing testing of staff and clients for COVID? Speaker 1: No required testing, but obviously if somebody's not feeling well, they stay away and go and get tested if they're presenting symptoms, but it's not a requirement of coming to work that you be tested on a regular basis and that hasn't come through any of the guidance from the funding bodies. We are a little bit different to a residential aged care facility where obviously if you get a case in one of those facilities, it can spread very quickly and people live there. So we haven't been running our centre programs since end of March. We're talking about easing our way back into that in October if things progress well in Queensland, but that's far from certain, obviously. We've got some smaller groups out of sight now and activities outdoors, taking people
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01:00:00 down to the river for a stroll and grabbing a bite to eat, things like that. Councillor Lorentson: You mentioned personal protective equipment. As one way of reducing the risk of spreading COVID, what other ways did you try to reduce the risk of cross-contamination? Did you provide cutlery and trays? Like was it just at... Yeah, I'm just thinking the volunteering staff were probably going from one home to another house. So cross-contamination I would think would have been something that you guys would have adopted. Speaker 1: The only place where we serve meals is at the centre. So when we haven't been running that, that hasn't been an issue for us. Okay, so... Yeah, where staff are taking clients out in the car, then there's a procedure in terms of cleaning the car before and after each client. So wiping down.
01:01:00 So the staff had kits there with sanitiser and wipes, hand sanitiser. There's a risk assessment that's been done on the major risks in terms of that, sanitiser, wipes, the rear seat diagonally opposite from the driver to maximise the space, all those kinds of things. So yeah, we worked closely with our COVID team and our workplace health and safety team in terms of the risk management side of it. But yeah, predominantly the PPE side of things, infection control, which is really the basics in terms of washing hands, personal hygiene, making sure you're not coming to work when you're sick. Having the screenings and the questionnaires there to make sure that staff are well and the clients are well. And obviously monitoring guidance from funding bodies really closely. Councillor Lorentson: You've said that you've lost five staff during this period. Your staff numbers have dropped from 20 to 25 to 20. When things go back to normal, is that going to impact on your ability to deliver services?
01:02:00 Speaker 1: No. So that reduction in our total FTE actually related to funding that was lost at the start of financial year. So completely separate from COVID. That's a separate factor. Yeah. So effectively there was a state funding program called Queensland Community Care. So we used that in three different funding streams within Noosa Community Support. And then when the NDIS program was rolled out in the Noosa region, a vast majority of clients that received services under the Queensland Community Care program would become eligible under the NDIS program. So that QCC program was actually abolished and they replaced some of the funding with the Queensland Community Support Program, QCCS, and that went out via open tender. And we applied for that funding, but missed out on it, which was where we saw the reduction in our funding of around $400,000, which meant because we have to operate to a zero bottom
01:03:00 line there. So whatever we receive in, we have to spend, but we can't spend more than what we've got, obviously. We had to identify that $400,000 worth of services. We had to identify that $400,000 worth of savings. And we were quite fortunate that a lot of that coincided with people that were retiring or resigning. And we had the ability to change the structure around a little bit and choose not to replace some of those positions to be able to reduce our total costs in line with the reduced funding. Mayor Stewart: Ash, just looking at page 46 and the team that deal with all the telephone calls and the welfare checks, and that's a pretty small team. I've been out there and they do a great job. I mean, I'm just looking here. Telephone welfare checks, 782. Welfare visits, 230. And these are ranging from 15 minutes up to two and a half hours. How is the workload on those particular staff members? I mean, have they felt under significantly more pressure with the workload that COVID's presented? Speaker 1: It's probably been a bit of give and take because we haven't run the centre itself.
01:04:00 We normally have kind of four staff that are tasked with operating the centre each day. So we go out in the buses, we collect clients, bring them back into the centre, run the programs, get them back on the bus and take them back out. So because we haven't been doing that, we've been able to effectively redeploy them to other internal tasks. So I wouldn't say the workload in terms of total number of hours has become any worse for them. Obviously, it's been a stressful time, understandably so. But again, we've been grateful for the fact that work has been able to continue. Yeah. Mayor Stewart: Okay, great. Speaker 1: Yeah. And we helped out, I think we mentioned in the report, helped out some of the Meals on Wheels services around the Shire as well, who again, suffered that same problem of volunteers kind of dropping off and needing people to step up. So yeah. Yeah. Councillor Wilkie: So during COVID, again on page 46, the services provided, you've got domestic assistance, for example, 2,780. Yep. Visits, I guess. How does that compare to previous years?
01:05:00 Speaker 1: I haven't actually got the tables in here. It is down a little bit, but the funding providers have been really good with regard to flexibility provisions. So I normally don't report on year-to-year comparisons or anything like that. But I do report on year-to-year comparisons because there's only so many outputs that we can deliver. So basically, we're funded for these various funding programs and we're required to deliver X number of services. So it's not something where we'd, unlike the Aquatic Centre or the Leisure Centre, we wouldn't look to grow the number of services that we're delivering because we're not actually funded for that, which would just put more strain on the team to try and deliver more services with the same amount of money, because you don't get more funding if you over-deliver. Councillor Wilkie: I guess my question is, as a result of COVID and more people are homebound, does that mean by necessity you're going out more to have contact with people, or are they saying, stay away, I'm isolating? Speaker 1: Bits of both. Some people didn't want any services because they were really cautious. Other people said, I'm really not concerned about COVID, but I just love this service.
01:06:00 I'd love to see somebody, or can you come and have a chat, connect with me? So there was a whole range of different scenarios there, and obviously we respected people's wishes. We never forced ourselves upon somebody if they didn't want us there, but if they did want us there, we found a way to do it. So there were plenty of ups and downs. Overall, total services delivered will be down slightly, but the nature of how they have been delivered has changed, which isn't as efficient. Councillor Wilkie: Is there, and reluctance is not the right word, but I see value in having comparative data for the services delivered, not as KPIs, but just so we can track things and ask questions about what's going on with staff and people at home. Another comment is, with all the other reports, I found it really useful to have the comparative data on previous years. Were you concerned about not comparing apples with oranges or something here because of Councillor Jurisevic: the change funding arrangement? Speaker 1: Yeah, it can change because of the output requirements and the intricacies of the funding
01:07:00 agreements and our reporting requirements back to funding bodies. I guess it's probably something that, because our accountability for the outputs there is actually back to the funding provider as opposed to back to council, so the Aquatic Centre and the Leisure Centre, the J are very much a council service, and our performance there impacts council's budget, NCS because we're bulk funded by federal and state programs. Yeah. Councillor Jurisevic: So that's actually our funding provider, and that's who we report back to on. Speaker 1: So I can certainly do it so you can get a sense as to what are we doing, and is it changing significantly, but I guess the financial performance side of it. Councillor Wilkie: What do the trends mean? What's going on? Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 5: Not as a KPI. Well, it may well be, Frank, that there isn't a trend, that it's not actually bad because each year we're funded to do this, so we do X number. Next year we're funded to do X. So it's not like the J or the Leisure Centre. It's not like those, no. No. Well, and you're not actually mapping transfers.
01:08:00 It may well just be every year it's exactly the same because that's all we're funded to do, so that's what we do. Speaker 1: It's all actually predetermined in the funding agreements, so years in advance. We actually already know now how many outputs we're required to achieve in each of these areas under our funding agreements moving forward. And as I said, if we overachieve, it actually just puts more strain on the team because our funding doesn't increase proportionally. Yeah. Councillor Wilkie: So last year the total revenue would have been $400,000 less than that, 2591 figure, for example. Speaker 1: Two point. Last year, the revenue would have been $400,000 more, but the expenses would have been as well. Yeah. And again, mapping it like the like would have looked messy because of that. Speaker 5: And there were different outputs for that. So it had its own outputs to do with that because of the different funding streams. Speaker 1: And our funding streams actually changed again this year. So our output requirements are different again because we've got more funding for respite care, but less for some of the other activities.
01:09:00 So. Speaker 5: It's an interesting one, I guess, because when we talk about, we talk about nursing community support as a whole service when actually what we're moving up is delivering us specific grant programs. Yeah. Councillor Wilkie: We're acquitting grants. Speaker 5: And we're acquitting grants. Essentially a couple of big grants that have specific requirements and that's what we report on. Yeah. And they might change from year to year what we have to report on and what outputs we have to provide. Yeah. Councillor Jurisevic: Activities like domestic assistance, home maintenance and home modification are typically different. They're covered under patients' plans under NDIS and things like that. Does any of that come into play here with respite? Speaker 1: Depends how deep you want to dig, but yes. Councillor Jurisevic: I mean, if she wanted to get a modification, she has to get NDIS approval and then it gets put into the budget for the next year. Speaker 1: Yeah. Depending on people's circumstances, they may be eligible for funding under a variety
01:10:00 of programs. So, yes. You could have lots of different people in the community that get a service that looks very similar but is actually provided under completely different funding agreements and by different providers. For us, we typically don't do the aged care package care or the home care packages and then they range from levels one to four, which is where somebody might be allocated a package of $50,000 and then they can spend it on these activities and then they can go and source their provider of those activities. Source their advisor, right. So, our service is not, that's called consumer directed care. Ours is still bulk funding to us as the organisation and then they say to us, based on our estimates, we think it's reasonable that you could or should deliver X number of these outputs in this region. There should be enough demand there for you. And then people will contact us or they go through the My Aged Care process and they're assessed and recommended to come to us and then we determine their eligibility for home maintenance and whether there's a co-contribution required or not.
01:11:00 And whether that's under the Commonwealth program or the state program or if they have home care package, can that cover it? So, that's why I'm trying not to get into too much detail in this. Councillor Wilkie: But what really interests me about this, you've mentioned a generational shift occurring as more and more baby boomers access NCS services. So, you're talking about the pre-war generation? Yeah. Giving way to the post-war generation. What is the shift that's being observed in terms of demand for services? What do the boomers want that the pre-war generation? Speaker 1: Yeah. We're saying that they want to be more active. Councillor Wilkie: More hooked in, connected in terms of communication. Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely there's some of the digital stuff and communication, but they don't... The previous generation was perhaps happier or more content to come to us and to stay there for the day, sit around. Yeah. They don't want to play rummy or cards, have their meal, have a bit of a chat and get back on the bus and go back home.
01:12:00 What we're seeing now is a transition to people that are still pretty able bodied, still reasonably capable and able of getting out. And they need some assistance with that and they want to be doing it with other people and they want some support around them, but they don't just want to come to the centre and sit there for five hours and then go back home. They want to be doing things and doing activities. Going down to the cafe, having a coffee, being out and about. So yeah, probably more independent, more active. So it just means we need to think about some of the programs that we deliver and how they transition and make their needs. Speaker 5: But you recall some years ago there was a proposal to build a seniors centre. We were saying at the time the baby boomer generation will not want to go to a seniors centre. Councillor Wilkie: They don't see themselves as seniors? Speaker 5: They don't see themselves as seniors. And they don't want their activities to be confined to one building. That's where they can go. Understandably, yes. Councillor Jurisevic: A lot more home care.
01:13:00 Speaker 5: So you can see this through our facilities and programs like our Ageing Well program. If you put on good programs and activities that meet the wide range of needs, they will come on board. But with the best of the best. If it's under the house, it's under the house, and then they're put in a box. Yep. Councillor Jurisevic: Nothing further? No. More questions? Councillor Lorentson: No, full time. Councillor Jurisevic: Do we have a mover? I'm moving. Council Wilkie. Second. All in favor? Speaker 2: Can I think that. Did you pass over all your staff? Thanks for the last one. It's been pretty tri-cultural, those guys. Yeah.
01:14:00 Speaker 1: We're looking forward to seeing you out there for a bit of a tour and a quick meet and greet with all Merb's staff, so if I'm not all of the staff, but the key staff. Councillor Jurisevic: We'll expect pickleball, table tennis, basketball, everything. Speaker 1: Everything you've made in your gift bag. Bye. Councillor Jurisevic: You're all, all, all. Bye. I want to do it. Have a quick 50. Quick dozen laps of thought at the end.