Providing information seems to be one of the biggest problems for the City of Ballarat.
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The decision to not release the Local Government Community Satisfaction Survey is the perfect example of why this problem exists.
The vast majority of councils in our area have received the report and released it to the public.
It seems fairly simple.
The City of Ballarat have not released the report and when asked, they wouldn’t say why.
It is an extremely simple question, and one would hope that it would have a relatively simple answer.
That decision, for whatever reason, makes it appear that the council has something to hide, even if they don’t.
And the council wonders why the community think they are not told anything.
A month ago Ballarat Councillor Vicki Coltman made a request that the findings were given to councillors as soon as possible so the report could be made public.
A perfectly reasonable request.
No one wants a repeat of last year when the council controversially withheld the results from the public until October.
Those results found there was a huge drop in “overall council direction.”
But this has nothing to do with the report itself. It has more to do the lack of information and seemingly unaccountable delays.
If there is a legitimate reason for the delay, which there most likely is, just tell us.
Did the council receive it late?
Was there a problem the City of Ballarat had to deal with that other councils did not?
Was it not possible for councillors to see the report and then make it public?
Other councils have released the results and let their constituents form their own views. Why can’t we just do the same?
Again, the report will probably find that constituents don’t feel like the council is in touch with the public or lament the lack of communication, something the council has worked very hard to address.
But this situation sums up why the problem exists.
The Courier shouldn’t even have to call and ask for an update or question why it hasn’t been released.
Because the question shouldn’t even need to asked.
Because of this decision to not provide information, residents are left wondering why that is the case.
This means residents are left not trusting the process.
The process here is what needs the most questioning, not the report itself.
Most people probably couldn’t care less what is actually in the report.
But what they do care about is having a council which is completely open and does what is expected of them.
At the very least, just tell us why it has taken so long to provide us with a report that every other council has no problem providing.
It just doesn’t make any sense.
After the unveiling of the report last year, chief executive officer Anthony Schinck said: “For me, the real gold nugget in all of this is that we have got to get better at informing the community and having proper engagement with the community.”
Have we learnt from last year’s report? That is the most important thing.
It is time the City of Ballarat opened the floodgates and started to be more open, because right now that doesn’t seem to be the case.