Wednesday, May 18, 2005
The end of a relatively short era
Since the election last February, Brisbane’s Lord Mayor – Liberal, Campbell Newman – has been in a minority in the Council Chamber and has been thus preoccupied with battles at home, taking his eye of the regional game. Coupled with this, strident Mayors in Logan and Ipswich – a fast growing city – have usurped Brisbane’s leadership and have subtly altered the balance of power at the regional level.
The decision was made a few week’s ago to create a Secretariat independent of Brisbane City Council and to move the organisation away from the operational and low level lobbying that we would do (always subordinate to the Local Government Association of Queensland) to become a vocal and overtly political body, not answerable to anyone. It would be called the Council of Mayors (SEQ), no longer representing the Councils of SEQ, but the Mayors only.
For our branch, this essentially meant that we were all out of job, as 85% of our work in ‘Intergovernmental Relations’ was dedicated to servicing SEQROC.
This move was not wholly unexpected; indeed most Regional Organisations of Councils have independent secretariats, though few are political bodies and concentrate on day to day operational networking, shared service provision and regional collaborative planning.
Bureaucrats live by the whim of their political masters. A straightforward decision can jettison a entire function. Whilst I am well over the bitterness of losing a job (as I have a new one), the way the change was pushed through has been a crass and insensitive.
Firstly, the Lord Mayor and the CEO made the decision to close the branch and cut us loose before the report on the changes had even been considered in draft, let alone coming close to being agreed.
As it turned out, most of the Mayors of SEQROC had little idea what they had preliminarily agreed, so wholly and open to interpretation were the words in the draft report. Therefore a decision by Brisbane City Council pre-empted any decision by SEQROC on its future, locking it into a course of action, few really agreed to.
Secondly, as recruitment to the new organisation is miles down the track (as no one in this office, including me, opted to take up any jobs offered) the new secretariat does not yet exist, so they have been unable and unwilling to wrap up SEQROC, which now has a fast dispersing secretariat, though somehow still functioning.
It is functioning because the CEO will not close us until the transition is complete. We have been instructed to fully cooperate in this transition; this we can cope with. But it seems the longer it goes on (and the more the politicians drag their heels) the more we move into starting to set up the new organisation, which is totally inappropriate.
Thirdly, there is a disappointing feeling that much of this has been driven by the ambition of the Mayors of Logan City and Ipswich City to raise their profiles at a regional level, at the expense of regional solidarity. With those two egos in the room, sometimes you would be hard pushed to physically fit in the meeting room.
Ironically, despite their ultra-large egos and their ambition to get themselves on the nightly TV news, councils and SEQROC often have an over-inflated view of themselves. Recently, during the launch of the Queensland State Government’s Regional Infrastructure Plan for SEQ, the commercial TV networks afforded 6 minutes coverage the State and the property industry’s working breakfast and just 3 quick words on council’s response. Coverage in the next day’s Courier-Mail was similarly as spartan for Mayors of SEQ.
Finally, if the State Government spots a rift between the LGAQ and the Council of Mayors, local government will be picked off all too easily – divide and rule. Potentially, this could cause the greatest rifts, especially if regional and North Queensland councils feel they are being discounted in favour of the bigger cousins down south.
Pastures new
I am one of the lucky ones. Not only did I find a new job quite quickly, but I am also allowed to leave the branch before the transition is complete; so I won’t be hanging around doing some paid consultant’s job.
From Tuesday, I start in Neighbourhood Planning, part of the City Planning Branch. This is somewhat more grassroots and aims to feed community design preferences into planning policies in the Brisbane City Plan. This will be done through a series of workshops (of course), functions and eventually a conference.
It sounds quite interesting but I will reserve judgement until I start and then make a decision on whether I leave council.
The end of a relatively short era
Posted by Living with Matilda at 12:08 PM
Brisbane City Council has hosted and funded the Secretariat to SEQROC, as part of being ‘regional leader’ and being the largest council in the organisation by miles. This was always bolstered by the Lord Mayor of Brisbane being keen to take on this leadership role.Since the election last February, Brisbane’s Lord Mayor – Liberal, Campbell Newman – has been in a minority in the Council Chamber and has been thus preoccupied with battles at home, taking his eye of the regional game. Coupled with this, strident Mayors in Logan and Ipswich – a fast growing city – have usurped Brisbane’s leadership and have subtly altered the balance of power at the regional level.
The decision was made a few week’s ago to create a Secretariat independent of Brisbane City Council and to move the organisation away from the operational and low level lobbying that we would do (always subordinate to the Local Government Association of Queensland) to become a vocal and overtly political body, not answerable to anyone. It would be called the Council of Mayors (SEQ), no longer representing the Councils of SEQ, but the Mayors only.
For our branch, this essentially meant that we were all out of job, as 85% of our work in ‘Intergovernmental Relations’ was dedicated to servicing SEQROC.
This move was not wholly unexpected; indeed most Regional Organisations of Councils have independent secretariats, though few are political bodies and concentrate on day to day operational networking, shared service provision and regional collaborative planning.
Bureaucrats live by the whim of their political masters. A straightforward decision can jettison a entire function. Whilst I am well over the bitterness of losing a job (as I have a new one), the way the change was pushed through has been a crass and insensitive.
Firstly, the Lord Mayor and the CEO made the decision to close the branch and cut us loose before the report on the changes had even been considered in draft, let alone coming close to being agreed.
As it turned out, most of the Mayors of SEQROC had little idea what they had preliminarily agreed, so wholly and open to interpretation were the words in the draft report. Therefore a decision by Brisbane City Council pre-empted any decision by SEQROC on its future, locking it into a course of action, few really agreed to.
Secondly, as recruitment to the new organisation is miles down the track (as no one in this office, including me, opted to take up any jobs offered) the new secretariat does not yet exist, so they have been unable and unwilling to wrap up SEQROC, which now has a fast dispersing secretariat, though somehow still functioning.
It is functioning because the CEO will not close us until the transition is complete. We have been instructed to fully cooperate in this transition; this we can cope with. But it seems the longer it goes on (and the more the politicians drag their heels) the more we move into starting to set up the new organisation, which is totally inappropriate.
Thirdly, there is a disappointing feeling that much of this has been driven by the ambition of the Mayors of Logan City and Ipswich City to raise their profiles at a regional level, at the expense of regional solidarity. With those two egos in the room, sometimes you would be hard pushed to physically fit in the meeting room.
Ironically, despite their ultra-large egos and their ambition to get themselves on the nightly TV news, councils and SEQROC often have an over-inflated view of themselves. Recently, during the launch of the Queensland State Government’s Regional Infrastructure Plan for SEQ, the commercial TV networks afforded 6 minutes coverage the State and the property industry’s working breakfast and just 3 quick words on council’s response. Coverage in the next day’s Courier-Mail was similarly as spartan for Mayors of SEQ.
Finally, if the State Government spots a rift between the LGAQ and the Council of Mayors, local government will be picked off all too easily – divide and rule. Potentially, this could cause the greatest rifts, especially if regional and North Queensland councils feel they are being discounted in favour of the bigger cousins down south.
Pastures new
I am one of the lucky ones. Not only did I find a new job quite quickly, but I am also allowed to leave the branch before the transition is complete; so I won’t be hanging around doing some paid consultant’s job.
From Tuesday, I start in Neighbourhood Planning, part of the City Planning Branch. This is somewhat more grassroots and aims to feed community design preferences into planning policies in the Brisbane City Plan. This will be done through a series of workshops (of course), functions and eventually a conference.
It sounds quite interesting but I will reserve judgement until I start and then make a decision on whether I leave council.
Posted by Living with Matilda at 12:08 PM
Disclaimer:
| I am employed by Brisbane City Council. All views expressed in this blog are my own and in no way reflect the views of my employer. |
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