Supplementary Agenda of General Meeting

Corporate Support Division

Date of Meeting: 19/06/2013

ITEM 7

CS22/13 - Independent Local Government Review Panel - Consultation Paper - Future Directions for NSW Local Government - Twenty Essential Steps

Additional information with NO CHANGE to Recommendation

Page 8 of Deputy General Manager?s Report No. CS22/13 noted that a Metropolitan Councils Workshop would be held at Chatswood on 14 June 2013 to discuss the Independent Local Government Review Panel?s consultation paper titled ?Future Directions for NSW Local Government ? Twenty Essential Steps?.

The Workshop, which was presented by the Review Panel?s Chairman ? Professor Graham Sansom, was attended by the Mayor; Councillor Browne; Councillor Gallagher; the Deputy General Manager, Corporate Support Division; the Manager, Strategy and Communications Branch; and the Risk and Audit Manager. Other attendees included Ms Jude Munro (a member of the Review Panel) together with elected and staff representatives of Councils from the Northern Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils (NSROC).

A copy of the presentation made by Professor Sansom at the Workshop is attached for Council?s information. Professor Sansom indicated that:

?????????????? The ?Future Directions for NSW Local Government ? Twenty Essential Steps? paper is a progress report for further consultation

?????????????? The Review Panel?s ideas are crystallising but are not set in concrete

?????????????? A number of issues require additional research prior to a final proposal being made

?????????????? The proposals are not radical by interstate or international standards ? all have been ?road tested? somewhere similar to NSW

?????????????? The proposals take into account the Government?s policy of no forced amalgamations

Whilst those present at the Workshop indicated in-principle support for a number of the proposals made by the Review Panel, there was a division of opinion among the NSROC Council representatives about the proposals relating to the amalgamation of councils in the Sydney Metropolitan Region.

No amendments to the table of responses to the Review Panel?s proposals contained in Deputy General Manager?s Report No. CS22/13 are required as a consequence of attending the Workshop. As such, the recommendation contained in the Report is still appropriate.

RECOMMENDATION

THAT the responses to the Independent Local Government Review Panel?s Key Proposals and Options, as detailed in Deputy General Manager?s Report No. CS22/13, form the basis of a Council submission to the Panel.