Baw Baw Shire Council has performed well in the annual Know Your Council results, released this week.
Know Your Council compares Councils across a range of core service delivery areas including Governance, Aquatic Facilities, Animal Management, Food Safety, Libraries, Roads, Statutory Planning, Waste Collection, Financial Performance and Sustainable Capacity.
Council's performance in the 2019/20 financial year was compared to Councils of a similar size, as well as Councils across Victoria.
Areas Council performed well in:
The percentage of Council decisions made closed to the public was just 1.69 per cent, compared to the Victorian average of 9.84 per cent.
The quality of Baw Baw's library collection exceeds other Councils, with 83.91 per cent of library resources under five years old, compared to 63.26 per cent at similar Councils.
The average cost to visit an aquatic facility was $5.24, compared to $11.66 at comparable Councils.
The number of residential bins missed was just 1.68 per 10,000 households, compared to the state average of 5.03
More than half of the waste collected by Council – 55.62 per cent - is being recycled or processed as green organics, compared to 44.13 per cent statewide.
Food complaints were actioned on the day they were received.
Most animal management requests were actioned on the day they were received.
A greater percentage of Aboriginal children were connected to and attended Council's Maternal Child Health service and at least once during the year – 84.28 per cent compared to 78.04 per cent at comparable Councils.
This year Community Satisfaction with community consultation and engagement increased three percentage points to 52 out of 100, bringing Baw Baw in line with comparable Councils, who average 53.
Areas we recognise as opportunities for improvement:
- Time taken to decide planning applications
- Community satisfaction with sealed local roads
- Community satisfaction with Council decisions
View the results here: https://knowyourcouncil.vic.gov.au/
As noted by Mayor Cr Danny Goss:
"Baw Baw is punching above its weight in many areas. We are delivering residents real value when it comes to our library and aquatic services. Our kerbside waste collection is also spot on.
"Council prides itself on its transparency and made only two closed decisions in the 2019/20 year, far fewer than other Councils.
"We've made a real effort to get out to the community with Council pop-ups and I'm pleased to see that's been reflected in the improved satisfaction with Council's consultation and engagement. We want to improve this even further, and we're currently asking residents to tell us how they want us to engage with them in the future, through the Community Engagement Policy Have Your Say.
"We know we've got room for improvement. This year we launched a new Roads Maintenance contract which doubles the investment in local roads, which I hope will be reflected in next year's results.
"We also need to improve our response time in responding to planning applications. With a very experienced Planning Director joining the team this month, I expect we'll make some headway in this space over the next 12 months."
