Closed meetings, bin pickups, community satisfaction: Get to know your council

The website, administered by DELWP and Local Government Victoria, is part of the Local Government Performance Reporting Framework (LGPRF), a mandatory system developed by Local Government Victoria to ensure all Victorian councils are measuring and reporting their performances in a consistent manner.

According to the state government, it is "a key initiative to improve the transparency and accountability of council performance to ratepayers and to provide a more meaningful set of information to the public."

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"The framework is made up of 58 measures and a governance and management checklist of 24 items which together build a comprehensive picture of council performance."

So how does the City of Ballarat compare? As in the past, The Courier has looked at the two nearest and most proximate regional councils, The City of Greater Bendigo and the the City of Geelong.

In terms of governance transparency, CoB still lags considerably behind its neighbours. Sixteen per cent of Ballarat's decisions were in secret, over twice as many as Bendigo and almost twice that of Geelong.

While the figure was down from last year (22 per cent), CoB still has more contracts dealt with behind closed doors than many other councils.

In contrast, City of Geelong said "We introduced transparent reporting of tender outcomes in 2018-19, and this limited most matters resolved at meetings closed to the public to those involving commercially-sensitive contracts."

Ballarat's ratepayers fork out slightly more than their neighbours for council's services, paying $1877.33 on average per property, compared to $1709.51 for Bendigo and $1602.56 for Geelong.

However, ratepayer satisfaction is higher in Ballarat, with a score of 63/100 for 'consultation and engagement efforts'. This is higher than the all council average of 56/100, and the first time CoB has broken the 60 mark in four years.

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Ratepayers also gave Ballarat's council 61/100 for 'making decisions in the interests of the community', again well above the overall average.

The eternal cry of "roads and rubbish" saw Ballarat slightly underperform its neighbours in community satisfaction with sealed road conditions, receiving 55/100 compared to 60/100 for Bendigo and Geelong. However Ballarat outperformed the other shires in reduced costs of resealing and reconstruction.

Ballarat's garbage collection costs per bin were only marginally higher than Geelong's (greater population, more bins) and substantially less than Bendigo's. However, Ballarat is still sending a substantial amount of its rubbish to landfill, with over 66 per cent still being tipped. Bendigo diverts 50 per cent of its waste from landfill; Geelong almost 56 per cent.

Statutory planning costs in CoB are substantially lower than either Bendigo or Geelong, with a per application average of $1935.48. This far undercut both Bendigo ($3,471.04) and the City of Geelong ($2,453.48).

City of Ballarat says 'a full complement of statutory planning services and productive outcomes has resulted in lower costs than the previous financial year.'

Application approvals took more time in Ballarat than in Bendigo, but less time than in Geelong.

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