Finally, staff raised and discussed the shared services model which had been approved of by South Gippsland Councillors and three other Councils in July 2018 with State Govt confirming $4.5 Million of funding in July 2019 shortly after the Councillors were dismissed.

Events have played out as anticipated in that meeting. Councillors were removed from office mid-June as “predicted” and after a further year of work “on” shared services Council finally withdrew from the shared services program on May 27th, 2020. The public were notified of this decision by a note being placed in the Council meeting Minutes after a decision in the closed session. Further, this decision was never notified to the press via a media release, to the public via any release, and was only discovered by chance when this newspaper reviewed the Council minutes of May and noticed the minuted comment.

Shared Services Program Adopted.

A media release dated 25th July 2018 released simultaneously by the four Councils, Bass Coast, Wellington, East Gippsland, and South Gippsland said the following:

“Four councils across Gippsland are investing in an innovative operating model that aims to maintain service levels while reducing duplication, improving efficiency, and increasing savings. Bass Coast, East Gippsland, South Gippsland and Wellington Shire Councils have all committed to explore the potential establishment of a ‘shared services’ entity that may eventually deliver their combined back-office/corporate services and IT functions into the future. It is expected that a three-year transition period would be required to set-up the shared services entity. Over the next 12 months the four councils will explore how the new entity could operate “.

The then CEO Mr Tamlin was quoted in the Sentinel Times online August 2nd, 2018, as saying on ABC Gippsland that “the four Gippsland councils involved in a new, shared-services initiative could save $10 million a year between them. I’m not saying each council will save $2.5 million a year each. It depends how they go about it but savings in that order across the three councils is possible,” 

Shared Services was to be a collaborative effort between the four Council whereby their IT sections were to be combined. The media release of 25th July 2018 further explains that “the councils have worked collaboratively on a high-level business case and proposed model that identifies savings to their operations and ultimately, to the community. Another benefit once established, is that the shared services entity may attract future income generating opportunities by offering its services to other organisations.”

So not only has Council now forgone any of these anticipated millions of savings, they have lost the chance to on-sell those services to other Councils to produce an income stream from outside the Shire and thus reduce ratepayers rates in this Shire. Why this decision was made on May 27th is not known since the debate, if any debate occurred, was in a closed session and not one Administrator has thought to mention it to the ratepayers since that date. 

Ratepayers deserve to know reasons why this decision was made and how the Administrators are acting in the best interests of the ratepayers by leaving the status quo in place and keeping the staff safe from any possible job losses whilst giving up on anticipated savings of several million dollars that the ratepayers will now have to hand up instead. It should be noted that the State Govt is in favour of the shared service model and it should be noted that South Gippsland Councillors had been the ones to first raise this back in March 2015 when Cr McEwen and Cr Hill presented a report into open Council on the benefits of such a model.

The following statement was received from the CEO Ms Kerryn Ellis when asked about this matter.

“We have been working alongside other Councils across Gippsland to establish shared services and develop a business case and take advantage of financial incentives. Council reviewed the business case and resolved to withdraw from the program on the basis of financial and risk considerations. Council remains supportive of shared services and will continue to pursue and take advantage of other opportunities as they arise.  In the interim we continue with our business improvement program and updating technology to provide improved outcomes for the community. Unions were engaged from an early stage and monthly meetings were conducted to communicate progress. The Unions have been informed of our decision.”

At least the staff got told.