Daylesford townhall
HEPBURN Shire Council met less than half of its performance targets for the year to the end of June.
Of the 15 targets adopted by the council in 2011, just six were met, Hepburn Shire’s annual performance statement shows.
Hepburn Shire chief executive officer Aaron van Egmond said the non-achievement of some of the measures was disappointing.
“These measures were put in place to drive continuous improvement and service delivery to the community of Hepburn Shire Council,” he said. “However, the performance measures need to be viewed in the context of an overall program.”
The council rated just 46 per cent for community satisfaction of its consultation process.
The score was calculated from a random sample of 400 Hepburn Shire community members who were asked a set of questions and requested to rate the council’s performance from very good to very poor.
The council also failed to issue 80 per cent of planning permits and 90 per cent of planning amendments within statutory time frames.
Its bid to complete 80 per cent of its capital works program for the financial year also came in under target, at 57 per cent.
Other targets not met included preparing main street revitalisation plans and preparing a review of the municipal strategic statement.
On the plus side, targets achieved by the council included the development of two new community plans (a community plan for the Sailors Falls, Musk Vale and Leonards Hill area was completed in April and a Daylesford community plan was completed in May) and providing maternal and child health services to a minimum of 316 clients (1026 children were enrolled in the Maternal and Child Health Service).
It also successfully completed a significant tree register and achieved targets for recycling and landfill waste.
Mr van Egmond said the performance measures were developed to drive change and were set in early 2011.
“Many things have changed since they were developed,” he said.
“It would be easy to set performance measures that are not difficult to achieve, and report that we achieved 100 per cent of our performance measures. This would not do justice to the process or provide a driving force for continuous improvement.”
In 2010-11 the council had 17 performance measures and met or exceeded 11 of them.
rachel.afflick@thecourier.com.au
