MITCHELL Shire Council deputy mayor Fiona Stevens used last month’s council meeting to call for an overhaul of delegates reports submitted by councillors.
At each meeting, councillors are required to receive and note a record of the assembly of councillors for each month, as well as a report on activities and deliberations of groups for which councillors are an appointed delegate.
Cr Stevens said there needed to be a rethink of the way delegates reports were handled after only Cr Rhonda Sanderson submitted a report for February.
“I think this can be misunderstood by the broader community that this might indicate there is only one councillor amongst us out there and about. That is not the case at all,” Cr Stevens said.
“There has been some confusion and discussion about how these reports should be compiled and in the past there has been some controversy when other councillors have put things in they felt were legitimate and met the criteria, and then were told to take them out.
“We as councillors need to revisit this and do an evaluation as to the effectiveness of it and how we might be able to do it better, because this is obviously not working.”
Cr Bob Cornish said he did not believe the lack of reports was a cause for concern.
“There are numerous committees that … people will be attending now that we’ve come out of [COVID],” he said.
“The councillors will get back on board and start putting these reports in. They’ll be reminded by staff to do so, so it’s not a life and death situation.”
But Cr Stevens said she had seen issues with reporting delegate activities for years.
“These nil reports were well before COVID, so we can’t use COVID as an excuse,” she said.
“The reason I am speaking against this is to let the community know that we do intend to revisit the process in the hope we can find something better to more accurately reflect what we’re trying to achieve.”
Cr Stevens voted against receiving and noting the reports, as did Mayor Bill Chisholm and Cr Louise Bannister. Cr David Lowe abstained from voting as he was only reappointed to council in March.
Crs Sanderson, Cornish, Nathan Clark and Annie Goble voted to receive the reports, and the motion was carried.
