Productivity and Savings Initiatives
Resource Sharing
Moree Council has been
proactively involved in cross-sharing local engineering expertise with
neighbouring shires. This includes direct design services and road construction
through partnerships with adjoining Councils, for example, approximately
$750,000 in flood damage restoration works were contracted to Gwydir Shire in
the 2004 Flood Program. In addition an extensive weight of loads policing
program is also undertaken which encompasses the shires of Gunnedah, Inverell,
Narrabri, Walgett, Gwydir, Warrumbungle and Glen Severn with Moree acting as
the administrating Council.
One of the most successful
joint initiatives has been the Northern
Regional Library, which serves nearly 32,000 people over 68,000 square
kilometres in northern New South
Wales. The Library serves the Shires of Brewarrina,
Walgett, Moree Plains, and Gwydir, with libraries in Brewarrina, Walgett,
Lightning Ridge, Mungindi, Moree, Warialda and Bingara. This resource is
administered principally by Moree Council.
Moree
Council is currently pursuing cross border co-operation with Queensland’s Goondiwindi Shire Council for
the supply of Water, Sewer and Garbage collection services. Significant cost
reductions can be achieved by taking advantage of Geographic centres of
service.
Human Resources
Council has been able to improve its staff development through the strategic use of external trainers and will move towards in-house internal trainers over the next five (5) years. Due to the use of training plans and central control of budgets Council has been able to deliver more training with an approximate reduction of 30% in expenditure plus a decrease in time lost in the work place due to the reduction of travelling to training venues.
Moree Plains Shire Council has a number of Human Resource specialist training forums and have encouraged the participation of adjoining Councils. This has allowed specialist training to come to remote rural areas in a cost effective manner and allowed for proactive networking and skills sharing across Councils. Human Resource practitioners from the region commenced formal quarterly Human Resource meetings in 2007 and this local group is growing. The initiative also meets the Department of Local Government’s requirements of resource sharing and partnering.
Improved consultative processes with employees in the Management of issues such as EEO, Workplace Policies, Delivery of Flood Works, Grievance and Dispute Management has reduced the time lost from being involved in lengthy and costly legal claims against Council in relation to employment matters.
Council’s workers compensation premium, which evolves from our three (3) year claim history, has remained relatively stable over the past three (3) years and Council is continuing with pro-actively working on rehabilitating and redeploying workers with long term injuries and managing issues such as the prevention of manual handling injuries. A Return to Work Co-ordinator was appointed to the organisation to pro-actively manage claims, workers compensation statistics and manage the rehabilitation of injured workers of MPSC in order to minimise the impact of injuries on Workers Compensation premiums.
Engineering
Council has a contract with the RTA to maintain 280 km of state road and 7km of National Highways within the Moree Shire. To achieve this goal Council has implemented a system of quality assurance that has enabled Council to become a ‘preferred contactor’ of the RTA. In addition Council maintains work procedure manuals that ensure quality of service, safety of employees and the public and that are sensitive to the natural environment.
In the national RTA Road Maintenance Benchmarking reports, Moree Council continues to effectively deliver these services. This benchmarking shows that Moree Council continues to maintain unit cost rates of service delivery that are below the state average. In addition the 2004 RTA contractor performance report shows that Moree Council continues to improve work standards, OH & S procedures, time management and contractor relationship benchmarks.
Strategic Road Network
• Rigorous Asset Management Planning discipline is bringing about efficiencies through developing a longer term focus on works planning
and funding requirements.
• Renewal projects are selected based upon a road condition approach, ensuring that resources are allocated to achieve the lowest cost
outcomes whilst optimizing network sustainability.
• An opportunity has been identified that will involve opening up access under the Road Train Modernisation Program to AB triples on
existing road train routes throughout the shire. This will result in a win/win situation where commercial transport efficiencies, road
safety, and road pavement useful lives would all be significantly improved.
• Extending the useful life of road pavements can be achieved through the following measures:
(i) Recently introduced Polymer Modified Binders (PMB) will perform better than the more commonly used class 170 bitumen seal. This will extend the useful life of the seal and the underlying road pavement due to the superior elasticity providing waterproofing and aggregate retention properties (see Table D).(ii) Council has undertaken chemical stabilisation of gravel road pavements with lime. Early indications are that the maintenance costs may be reduced along with a higher level of service being available for motorists. Table D
(iii) Research work is being undertaken overseas on chemically stabilising self mulching black soils to improve the driving surface of unsealed black soil roads. This work will be monitored and possibly a trial will be undertaken by MPSC when more information becomes available.
Operational
• Development of a long term works program allows the effective planning of works delivery to continue.
• The modernisation of Council plant and truck fleet is ongoing to ensure operational efficiencies continue to be gained in this area.
• It is planned to deliver the proposed expanded 09/10 works program (due to funding from the Special Rate Variation) without any
additional supervisory staff. This will save on engineering overhead costs.
• The SV will result in a larger volume of work. This will lead to larger contract lots, generating economies of scale for both commercial
suppliers and Council.
Above: Renewal of sealed road.
Finance and Asset Management
Moree Council has implemented AIM (Asset Infrastructure Management) software that will enable better management of infrastructure in terms of:
• Improved management and financial reporting on Council assets.
• Improved maintenance program for infrastructure
• Allows full compliance with relevant accounting standards in regard to depreciation at component level.
• Allows integration with Council’s overarching asset management plan.
In addition this system provides for detailed asset tracking and allows the accurate identification of excessive maintenance on problem assets where capital replacement may be a more feasible alternative. In conjunction with Councils water and waste services, best practice pricing has been implemented in compliance with departmental guidelines. This will remove significant cross-subsidisation within the Council water and sewer funds.
The finance department undertook an extensive review of Council loan funds in 2006. This review led to loan re-negotiations which has resulted in an annual recurrent expenditure reduction of approximately $500,000. This additional funding has been utilised for general fund projects including road maintenance expenditure.
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