New councillor on GM performance panel

By Tim Howard

Who would have thought picking a panel to assess a general manager’s performance could be so difficult.

Last week Clarence Valley Council turned a formality into performance art as it looked to appoint a panel to for its annual inspection of general manager Laura Black’s performance.

The council policy is the mayor and deputy mayor are automatic picks. Council selects one of its number and the general manager picks another.

The panel of four, with an independent chair, go through set criteria and assess how well the GM has met the targets set.

It looks straight forward in theory, but in practice it has proved anything but.

A year ago the mayor at the time, Cr Peter Johnstone, deputy Jeff Smith, the council’s pick Karen Toms and GM pick Cr Debrah Novak met.

They measured her performance against targets set and agreed she had exceeded them in a number of cases.

But when the results came back to council in a mayoral minute to an extraordinary council meeting in February this year, they included a recommendation of a 2% pay rise for the GM on top of her $342,696.93 annual salary.

Clarence Valley Council general manager Laura Black has yet to reveal which councillor she would like to see on the panel evaluating her performance.

Unsurprisingly, in a cost of living crisis, this ruling sparked some protest and led eventually to some spectacular debate, including an allegation of a group of councillors, “out to get” the general manager during an ultimately unsuccessful rescission motion to overturn the pay rise.

And in 2023 when the panel met, deputy mayor Greg Clancy made headlines when he walked out of a panel meeting, unhappy with the process involved.

So it came as no surprise last Thursday when the item kicked off with a motion from Cr Debrah Novak seeking to ditch the deputy mayor, Cr Clancy, from this year’s panel to give councillors the opportunity to elect two councillors to go on the panel.

There was a question over the legality of the motion, but Ms Black said it was lawful, although it needed to identify itself as a departure from council policy.

Cr Novak adjusted her motion accordingly and also pointed out that the council’s gender equity guidelines also dictated at least one of those selected should be a woman.

While the councillors were deadly serious in their debate, people looking on from the gallery could see the funny side, prompting Cr Whaites to call on the mayor for help.

“Can you please ask the public to not mention, not laugh and not giggle at us, please,” she asked of Cr Smith.

Cr Novak said the council policy was just a guideline and to allow council to pick two members in addition to the general manager’s pick was “fit for purpose”.

Cr Clancy did not agree.

Tongue in cheek, he thanked Cr Novak for “sparing him the stress” of sitting on the panel, but thought that her motion was a “direct attack on me”.

Cr Novak called a point of order and Mayor Smith ruled in her favour.

Cr Greg Clancy survived an attempt to change council policy to have him dropped as an automatic pick on the general manager’s performance review panel. He has been a critic of the way the panel operates.

Cr Clancy tried again, claiming he had been targeted.

Again Cr Novak called a point of order, claiming an implication that Cr Clancy was “reading her mind”.

Again the mayor upheld the point of order.

Cr Clancy said Cr Novak needed to explain her reasons for bringing the motion, because it was easy to interpret it as targeting him.

Another point of order.

Unable to pursue this line, Cr Clancy agreed to withdraw his claim of being targeted, but said it created a “very bad precedent” and council should stick to its policies.

Cr Johnstone agreed, pointing out the policies had been developed to cover all eventualities and take the heat out of situations.

Cr Toms was also against making changes, but could “understand where it came from” considering Cr Clancy’s criticism of the performance review panel in the past.

She was concerned Cr Clancy had described being on the panel as “a poison chalice” and that he had “stormed out” of a panel meeting when he was deputy mayor.

This sparked another point of order, this time from Cr Clancy.

Cr Alison Whaites backed Cr Novak’s motion.

She was disappointed with the way the panel had been handled before and didn’t want a repeat of what happened last term in this term.

She said it was important to throw open the opportunity to be on the performance review panel to more councillors.

One of the newly-elected councillors, Cr Cristie Yager, will be the councillors’ pick on the Clarence Valley Council general manager’s performance review panel.

Cr Johnstone asked if Cr Clancy was happy to be on the panel.

He replied he was but it was difficult, but it was his duty as deputy mayor to sit on the panel, even if it was a “poison chalice”.

In her right of reply Cr Novak raised an issue that breached the privacy of a councillor and quickly apologised for her mistake after a point of order was called.

She said her motivation was to give more councillors the opportunity to get onto the performance review panel.

The council did not agree and voted it down.

Councillors voted on a foreshadowed motion from Cr Johnstone, to revert to the usual selection process, which was adopted.

Then came the nominations for the panel.

Cr Johnstone picked Cr Cristie Yager.

Cr Shane Causley nominated Cr Karen Toms and Cr Novak nominated Cr Whaites.

During debate on Cr Yager’s nomination Cr Whaites said while Cr Yager would be  an “asset” to the panel, she did not possess the experience of either Cr Toms or herself.

“I’ve done multiple performance reviews, and I think I probably am the most, the best one here actually, out of all us councillors, and second would be Cr Toms,” she said.

Cr Yager spoke “for myself” and said she would maintain an open mind.

“I think I’m very good at being open minded to all information given to me, and I’m always open to persuasion given the facts,” she said.

Mayor Smith put her nomination to the vote and she was elected five votes to four.

The general manager has yet to name the councillor she would like on the panel.

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Conduct submission waved through

By Tim Howard

The Clarence Valley Council’s input into a discussion paper aimed at improving behaviour in local government has been waved through, despite concerns some of its suggestions might be a “bit too 1984”.

At last Thursday’s council meeting the councillors endorsed the council’s submission Code of Conduct and Meeting Practice Framework Discussion Paper, but voted against some changes suggested by deputy mayor Cr Greg Clancy.

While happy overall with the document, he was concerned some of the suggestions included in the Mayoral Minute went too far and sought to amend the document by omitting some sentences.

Cr Clancy was concerned the submission should take a tougher stance to prevent lobby groups entering local government and including former general managers on privilege committee to investigate councillors was not a good idea.

He also said mandating attendance at Office of Local Government training sessions for would-be councillors went too far.

Cr Clancy was also concerned with attempts to control dissemination of misinformation.

He said while he had concerns about disinformation in public forums, care was needed.

“I certainly don’t support dissemination of misinformation, because the problem is, who’s going to define what that is,” he said.

But other councillors were not so worried.

Cr Peter Johnstone said while there could be objections on minor points, the submission was strong overall.

Cr Cristie Yager said the training she received as a new councillor had been excellent and would benefit all councillors.

Cr Lynne Cairns, who seconded Cr Clancy’s proposed amendment, questioned the mayor about a section of the submission about community dissatisfaction with the time taken and costs incurred to deal with complaints.

Cr Smith said that on many occasions the process to ensure compliance was unnecessarily complicated.

“To enforce compliance council must issue an order, he said.

“Following the issue of the order, if there’s still non-compliance, council then has to issue another notice.

“And then if there’s still non-compliance, we have to take it through the court system.

It makes it a very long, arduous and costly process.

“And all we’re suggesting here is that councils be given more authority to enforce compliance in a much more effective manner.”

Councillors voted 7-2 against the amendment and then debated a foreshadowed motion from Cr Johnstone to endorse the submission.

Cr Clancy continued his opposition to it.

“I think some of these statements that are in that mayoral minute are a real concern, and I think councillors need to think about it, if they want to put their name to some of those statements,” he said.

“I think that it’s suggesting that lobby groups going to become an increased issue. It’s talking about misinformation.

“Who’s going to decide what that is? To me, this sounds like 1984.”

The motivation for the submission came from Minister for Local Government Ron Hoenig described the current system as “fundamentally broken”.

“It is too open to weaponisation, with tit-for-tat complaints diverting critical council resources and ratepayer money from the things that matter most to communities,” Mr Hoenig said.

“The sheer volume of vexatious complaints being made is preventing the Office of Local Government from focussing its attention on getting crooks out of the local government sector.

Mr Hoenig said the options in the discussion paper put the onus onto councils to address and resolve councillor misbehaviour rather than send matters to the state government or private investigators to fix.

“It also puts forward options to strengthen the role of the Office of Local Government as the sector regulator, including expanded investigation powers for serious conflict of interest breaches and the ability to issue penalty infringement notices,” he said.

“For far too long the system has been abused. It’s time to restore public confidence in councils and ensure the dignity of this vital third tier of government is upheld.”

The discussion paper can be viewed here.

Public submissions closed on November 15, but the council was granted a deadline extension until November 29.

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Respect missing ingredient in councillor behaviour

By Tim Howard

The need for councillors to show more respect for each other in public and private leads off the Clarence Valley Council’s response to a discussion paper on regulations covering councillor behaviour.

The NSW Office of Local Government released a discussion seeking ideas for changes to the Model Code of Conduct and Model Code of Meeting Practice, which are documents that guide council meetings.

It released the discussion paper around the time of the local government election in September and gave newly elected councils until November 16 to make submissions.

The council has been granted an extension to November 29 to make its submission, which is the subject of a Mayoral Minute to the November 21 ordinary council meeting.

The OLG discussion paper noted the driver for change has been the large number of code of conduct complaints received.

The seven-page council response noted this but said the paper overlooked the need for more respectful behaviour.

“The principles of change however, do not address an intent to improve the standard of behaviour to that expected by the community. The key missing principle is Respect,” the council response noted.

“The Code should require councillors to display respectful behaviours and interactions with other councillors, the general manager, staff and the public.

“This includes refraining from unsubstantiated claims and criticisms in communications, social media, public forums and debate.

“Respectful behaviours and interaction should inform decisions and outcomes, not target individuals.”

The council response lists four other areas where it believe the discussion paper falls down.

It said councils, as the third tier of government must be able to show leadership and independence in decision making.

Restriction on council’s ability to set fees and charge and ordinary rates influenced decision making and reduced independence.

The council agreed there was more need for transparency, but flagged concerns about banning pre-meeting briefings.

It said these meetings created a “safe environment” for councillors and staff to discuss issue in an open manner.

Clarence Valley Mayor Ray Smith will bring a mayoral minute seeking council’s endorsement of its response to calls for changes to regulations covering councillor behaviour and meeting practice.

It said removing these meeting could endanger a deeper understanding of complex issues, which would not be in the best interests of the community.

There was support for a strong and proportionate local government regulator.

“The regulator rarely intervenes as it is, and when it does it is slow to respond indicating the system is broken  or the regulator is severely under resourced,” the council response said.

Key reforms outlined in the discussion paper, some of which would require changes to the Local Government Act 1993, include:

• Establishing a local government privileges committee of experienced councillors with mayoral experience to assess complaints made against councillors for misbehaviour, consistent with practices in other tiers of government (where the conduct does not meet the threshold for police or referral to another investigative body or tribunal)
• Removing private investigators from the councillor conduct process, while strengthening the investigative capability of the Office of Local Government to investigate and prosecute legitimate complaints (such as issuing penalty infringement notices where conflict of interest declarations have not been made)
• Banning private councillor briefing sessions, except in very limited circumstances
• Strengthening lobbying guidelines for local government
• Giving mayors more power to expel councillors from meetings for acts of disorder and remove their entitlement to receive a fee in the month of their indiscretion.

Minister for Local Government Ron Hoenig described the current system as “fundamentally broken”.

“It is too open to weaponisation, with tit-for-tat complaints diverting critical council resources and ratepayer money from the things that matter most to communities,” Mr Hoenig said.

“The sheer volume of vexatious complaints being made is preventing the Office of Local Government from focussing its attention on getting crooks out of the local government sector.

Mr Hoenig said the options in the discussion paper put the onus onto councils to address and resolve councillor misbehaviour rather than send matters to the state government or private investigators to fix.

“It also puts forward options to strengthen the role of the Office of Local Government as the sector regulator, including expanded investigation powers for serious conflict of interest breaches and the ability to issue penalty infringement notices,” he said.

“For far too long the system has been abused. It’s time to restore public confidence in councils and ensure the dignity of this vital third tier of government is upheld.”

Public submission closed on November 15.

The discussion paper can be viewed here. 

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