News Alert |

The City of Ballarat has welcomed the release of the Know Your Council results for 2018-19 financial year.   

 The figures allow residents to compare City of Ballarat’s performance with that of Councils across the state in all key areas of service delivery.  

City of Ballarat Mayor Cr Ben Taylor said it was reassuring to see the City of Ballarat had performed above average in a number of areas 

“What is particularly pleasing is the rate of community satisfaction with Council’s consultation and engagement processes which have continued to improve and remain above the average of ‘all’ and ‘similar’ Councils on the Know Your Council website. 

The community satisfaction rating relates to consultation and engagement efforts of the Council. This includes consulting and engaging directly with the community on key local issues requiring decisions by Council. 

“These latest comparisons certainly reinforce results of the Community Perceptions Survey conducted earlier this year, where our Council received excellent ratings for overall performance and customer service,” Cr Taylor said. 

“No Council expects a perfect report card, but consistently good results, particularly in the area of community engagement, help us determine what we are doing right and where we need to focus our attention for improvement.” 

The cost of governance per Councillor for the City of Ballarat $46,665 as listed on the Know Your Council website is lower than all and similar Councils. 

The City of Ballarat also scored 23/24 on the governance and management checklist, which measures whether a Council has strong governance and management framework in place covering community engagement, planning, monitoring, reporting and decision-making. Council is currently undertaking a review of asset management expected for completion in late 2019. To hear from our Councillors about key Council projects click here

There was an increase in the number of resolutions made at meetings closed to the public. However, this was due to meeting procedure changes made in November 2018, to allow Councillors to pass multiple reports in one ‘block’, therefore leading to an increase in the indicator. Council had less resolutions made in camera in the 2019 year (68) compared to the 2018 financial year (76). Read more

Cr Taylor said the nationwide recycling crisis and the decision of Council to implement its own solution to ensure recycling does not go to landfill, meant the service cost Council more to implement than previous years.  

Established in 2015, the Know Your Council website is designed to help the community understand the role of local councils, explore information about their municipality and compare a council’s performance to similar councils.   

 Residents can view our performance here