Council has a 4 year plan that informs the CEO of the program to be delivered over the next 4 years. The CEO is then responsible to staff the Council to fulfil the plan. Throughout the 4 years of the plan some minor staff fluctuations occur as is normal in the operations of large organisations such as council.
In 2018/19 Government removed Health and Community Services (HACC) from all Councils. This had the effect in South Gippsland of reducing the staff numbers from a Full Time Equivalent (FTE) number of 274 down to 253. A reduction of 22 FTE positions and a saving of around $500,000 per year is reduced staff costs.
When the Administrators took over from the dismissed Councillors in June 2019, they passed the budget which contained an estimate of 253 FTE for the upcoming 2019/20 year. The annual report for 2019/20 was recently received at the Sept Council meeting and within that document it stated that FTE for the 2019/20 year was actually 261. This is an increase of 9 FTE positions.
We asked Council for comment and their reply is as follows:
The FTE as of 30 June 2019 and the 30 June 2020 is a measure of FTE at that particular point in time. At any point in time, Council will have vacant positions. It will also have employees on maternity, family or long service leave whose positions may be filled with a temporary employee. These temporary employees are counted in addition to the employee whose vacancy they are covering.
Page 54 of the annual report shows the following:
Ten positions needed to be duplicated for varying lengths of time throughout the year to backfill maternity leave and staff on long service leave.
Three vacant positions at the end of 2019, were filled during the year. These were not new positions, only existing positions that were not being paid at the end of 2019, but are now captured in the FTE and headcount at the end of 2020.
Three new fixed-term positions have been established, including a Risk officer and Freedom of Information officer appointed due to a significant increase in workload demands, and an ‘It’s No Drama’ Project officer, that is grant funded.
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