MidCoast Council's Yalawanyi Ganya Office Centralisation Project won at the 2021 NSW Local Government Excellence Awards in the Special Project Initiative category.
The project won out of nine other city and regional based Councils in the Population under 100,000 category and the leaders behind the project attended the evening on June 3 to accept the award.
The Yalawanyi Ganya Office Centralisation Project was undertaken to consolidate MidCoast Council's administration and customer service functions into a central location in Taree.
The purpose of the office centralisation was to enable Council to deliver lower operating costs and greater efficiencies to our community.
"This was a huge project to coordinate and everyone who contributed is to be congratulated," General Manager, Adrian Panuccio, commented.
"Moving our staff into a centralised office is the culmination of a huge body of work following the merger of four former entities.
"Bringing our staff together under the one roof is contributing to a number of benefits such as improved collaboration and streamlined processes."
Yalawanyi Ganya is a community space for everyone to enjoy, providing modern concierge-style customer service to ensure community enquiries are attended to quickly and efficiently.
"It's been great seeing the community come and enjoy the common areas of Yalawanyi Ganya - like the cafe, foyer and gallery space," he added.
"We encourage the community to come and visit us - it's a shared space that we all should be really proud of."
Construction and fit-out of Yalawanyi Ganya was completed in December 2020 and the community was welcomed to the building in early January 2021.
Council continues to operate customer service points at Forster, Gloucester, Stroud and Tea Gardens.
