By Colin MacGillivray
VIDEO and social media posts were among options discussed as innovative and potentially more engaging alternatives to traditional written councillor delegate reports at last month’s Mitchell Shire Council meeting.
Delegate reports, which note the activities of community groups for which councillors serve as a delegate, are currently submitted at each month’s meeting and included as part of the meeting agenda.
While delegate reports aim to inform the public about councillors’ activities in the community, Cr Fiona Stevens suggested they were ‘not hitting the mark’ in April, calling for a review of the way they were delivered.
During 2022, only two councillors have consistently submitted delegate reports – Cr Rhonda Sanderson and Cr David Lowe, who was reappointed to council following the resignation of former councillor Christine Banks in February.
At last month’s meeting Cr Sanderson moved that council combine its delegate reports with its assembly of councillors record, a separate document outlining each gathering of councillors in between monthly ordinary council meetings.
Cr Sanderson suggested a unified document, to be called a councillor activity report, could provide a more cohesive view of council activity.
She said council could also develop less formal methods of community engagement to complement the reports.
“We want to meet our obligations of being open and transparent, [which include] reporting back to the community on our committees and when we attend an event as an invited council representative,” she said.
“I’m happy that we explore less [formal] methods of reporting back to the community, which is what some of the councillors would like to see.”
Cr Lowe supported Cr Sanderson’s motion, but Cr Stevens spoke against combining the two reports into one document.
“It may be worth keeping [the assembly of councillors records] separate and keeping it as a written document for ease, whereas the delegate report is easier to convey to the community in a friendlier, easier to understand way,” she said.
“[We could] introduce innovation to the way we share that information.
“Cr Sanderson’s focus is still very much on the written report. We’re being told by staff all the time that we need to be getting away from a written report and use multimedia options.
“We can use videos, we can use QR codes, we can use messages on public notice boards. It’s not about stepping away from the obligation, it’s about methodology.”
Cr Rob Eldridge said he believed relatively few people read the delegate reports contained in meeting minutes.
“For the most part the community is not looking to this to judge how we’re going as councillors – they want the roads fixed, they want outcomes,” he said.
Cr Sanderson’s motion was lost, with her, and Crs Lowe, Bob Cornish and Nathan Clark in favour and Crs Stevens, Eldridge, Louise Bannister and Mayor Bill Chisholm against.
Cr Stevens put forward an alternative motion that council ‘investigate proven effective methods of engagement, to meet the requirements of the community’.
Cr Lowe protested that Cr Stevens’ motion represented ‘a rehash’ of her original April motion for council officer to ‘investigate the current process of preparing a councillor delegate report’.
“I think this is just kicking the ball down the road again,” Cr Lowe said.
“We have had the review of the processes, we have seen what other councils do … and I don’t think this is significantly different from the request that was made back in April. This is just a delay that is not going to take us anywhere.”
But Cr Stevens said it was a step forward in the process.
“This is simply about best practice. If we’re going to put the effort in to perform our duties, we need to be able to inform the community in an interesting and engaging way,” she said.
“Let’s be leaders in this field. Just because other [councils] are doing written reports, how do we know … how effective their reports are? We’re saying ours aren’t, so let’s do better.
“Let’s still meet our obligations, but do it in a 21st century manner.”
Cr Sanderson said she still believed written reports could be effective, noting that most councillors used to submit them.
“In August 2017 we had eight of the nine councillors complete delegate reports very diligently,” she said.
“In 2018 we had all nine of the councillors complete their August report and in 2019 we had eight of the councillors complete their August report.
“This is an open, transparent and cost-effective way of getting back to the community. I do support looking at other methods for councillors to showcase what they’re doing – I think that’s a great thing too, but I think we can do both.”
Cr Stevens’ motion passed, with her, and Crs Clark, Bannister, Eldridge and Chisholm in favour and Crs Cornish, Lowe and Sanderson against.
