PILLAR 6
LEADERSHIP AND TRANSPARENCY This pillar is about fostering a culture of professionalism, transparency, accountability and financial responsibility where the community is actively listened to and a part of the decision making process.
• Three online corruption form allegations were investigated and finalised (in conjunction with Manger, Governance and Risk Management).
The goals in this pillar include:
• Goal 6.4: Council’s assets and resources are managed responsibly and with accountability
• Our Happy or Not customer feedback portals in customer centres and provide real time feedback on a customer's immediate interaction with our staff. We see consistently favourable results indicating our customers are happy with the service they receive. Customers can leave feedback and comments and this is captured and used to recognise staff and teams and also improve our services and processes. The overall result for this year was 88% HAPPY, improving on the previous year 85% HAPPY.
• Goal 6.5: The workforce is inspiring, diverse, and engaged
• Our WHS Strategy is in place to guide WHS for the next three years.
• Goal 6.6: Council has a regional-approach to service delivery and facilities.
• Our revised Business Continuity Management Policy was adopted in March 2021 and revised Crisis Management Team structure in response to COVID-19 included an updated Business Continuity Plan.
• Goal 6.1: The community is involved and listened to • Goal 6.2: Open, informed, and transparent decisionmaking supports the interests of the community • Goal 6.3: Leadership focuses on innovation and improving the customer experience
Achievements • We continued to implement our Innovation Strategy focusing on building a culture of innovation across the organisation. • We completed a comprehensive list of risk-based audits on the Audit Program 2020/21 including: - - - - - - - -
payroll procurement service review tree management swimming pool compliance project governance and methodology development related fees and charges Transport for NSW DRIVES compliance audit information management and technology cybersecurity • We conducted five ARIC meetings including four normal meetings and a special meeting for the financial statements covering all statutory item requirements.
• We recruited two new ARIC members to replace the retiring committee members.
• Staff engagement has increased by 3% compared to the previous year’s staff engagement survey. • We developed a careers video which demonstrates our commitment to support staff from various backgrounds. • Our new Policy framework was adopted in September 2020. • We appointed procurement champions within each Directorate to facilitate contract information updates into the corporate system. • Our procurement policies and practices demonstrate best practice in probity assurance and legislative compliance to external auditors.
Challenges • We were unable to perform Cash Handling Audit due to COVID-19 impacts. • Pressure on existing resources to deliver with a diminished capacity due to vacancies and staff turnover.
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