“The longest journey begins with the first step” is a very well known saying.
According to the list of attendees from various Councils, the first step on the journey from Wollongong to Destination 2036 was taken when our area was represented by WCC General Manager at the recent workshop in Dubbo. The reason for his attendance was, of course, that we did not have elected Councillors at that time.
For all his professional abilities as a General Manager, I have not noticed any real commitment from him (during the absence of elected Councillors) towards such matters as empowering Neighbourhood Forums to function as Neighbourhood Committees in order to better manage community business. These committees are typically viewed as a nuisance by bureaucrats, who seek (consciously or unconsciously) to protect their own patch.
So I am not sure what spirit was taken from Wollongong to Dubbo for the Destination 2036 workshop. The needs of Council as a bureaucracy would have been well represented, but what else? Clearly the voices of community champions, such as former Councillors Dave Martin and Alice Cartan, were absent from the Wollongong representation.
The Destination 2036 Outcomes report contains a lot of various concerns and objectives raised from the Dubbo workshop. It is a very complex document. There is some passing mention of the sort of thing – fair dinkum community engagement in Council decision-making – which is the main focus of reformwcc.
But this passing mention is as a side issue, not something which informs the core of the thinking in the report. This is reflected in the way the next stage of the Destination 2036 project is planned – the Action Plan.
Councillors and Council staff are encouraged to read and comment on the Action Plan, but no provision is made for input from our communities at this stage.
Once the Councillors and Council staff have made their comments, a finalised Action Plan will be available for consultation with stakeholders. We may get a look in (along with other stakeholders) at that stage.
In my experience, once these planning documents have their core values cemented securely in place (by politicians and bureaucrats) no amount of “community consultation” will produce any real changes. “Finalised” is the word, with real resistance to any changes to the conceptual architecture in place.
For any talk of ‘partnership’ with community to be meaningful, there has to be a spirit of partnership present – and implemented – from the very outset.
My quick assessment is that, in the majority of thinking in the present Outcomes document, effective and meaningful community participation in Council decision-making is very much a minor side issue.
Generally speaking the thinking contained in the initial Outcomes document is based on an obsolete ‘vertical’ form of ‘modern’ organisation. The second half of the 20th century saw these flourish. They are command structures, separated from their community surroundings, and which seek top-down control.
What is required, if we are to effectively meet present and emerging challenges (with some problems partly as a consequence of the shortcomings of ‘vertical’ forms of organisation) are new forms of organisation which shift from control to relating – that is, from a ‘vertical’ form of organisation to ‘horizontal’ forms.
To put it bluntly, for a document which seeks to sketch out the path for the next 25 years, it is dominated by 20th century ‘vertical’ organisation thinking which is not well placed to plan for that journey.
The terrain to be covered between 2011 and 2036 is very different from that which has been in place for the life of the present Wollongong City Council (formed circa 1947 and replacing smaller and personal organisational forms such as Bulli Council).
All the indicators are that life for people in places like Wollongong over the coming quarter century period is going to be very different to that which was enjoyed in the Western world from the 1950s until the present. We are now witnessing the collapse of that standard of living. Things are rapidly changing at this very moment. We will need to find new ways of living.
WHERE DOES THIS LEAVE US?
Clearly there is now an opportunity for our newly elected Councillor to come up to speed with yet another major report (but they must be also seriously overloaded with the backlog placed on them). Hopefully a good number of the new Councillors will take the time to read the Destination 2036 Outcomes report and will take an active interest in the next phases.
What is needed is some action now to move beyond a closed shop approach and to bring in genuine community participation in the whole process – before it proceeds down a bureaucratic path to ‘finalisation’.
For all the surprises represented by the O’Farrell government, there is virtually no chance that the State Government local government department (still dominated by senior bureaucrats from the pervious era) will alter its timetable to widen out the initial process in order to enable informed community participation.
As things are shaping up for those of us who regard the spirit of partnership as something more than a catchy phrase – that is, as a vital ingredient in a new organisational design – the long journey we are on may not be on the same path as that contained in the thinking of Destination 2036 Outcomes Report and the timetable of the Implementation Steering Committee for finalisation of an Action Plan.
Replacing the obsolete ‘vertical’ organisation thinking at the core of decision-making (at all levels) is a far more important objective over the coming decade if we are to meet life’s challenges.
As the socio-economic climate changes around us – along with the actual climate – achieving this objective will become far easier. Managers will realise that effective community involvement in decision-making is a key part of getting solutions as right as possible (and making the most of available resources).
The time to be experimenting with better models for local government in the Wollongong area – models which have such features as Ward based community council liaison officers assisting Ward Councillors and Ward Based Precinct Committees – is now – with the aim of having a proven and greatly improved community-centred model for Wollongong Council in place well before 2036 – maybe by 2022?
COMMUNITY BASED ACTION PLAN
1. Accurately identify the blockages to genuine community-based reform of the model of local governement.
2 Gently but firmly dissolve those blockages.
