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Council has been made acutely aware on numerous occasions (most recently in the pre-budget (2001/2002) discussions, that it is failing to protect, maintain and improve its transport, road, footpath and drainage infrastructure at an appropriate and adequate level.
This rapidly declining situation is borne out in comparisons of recommended maintenance and repair schedules and recognised standards of financial input into asset maintenance. While it is sometimes easy to ignore recommended ratios and theoretical schedules, we are no longer in a position to ignore the hard, day to day, practical evidence that not only are Council's assets declining alarmingly but that the decline, if not arrested immediately will become exponentially worse.
There is growing and alarming evidence that both Council's ability and willingness to adequately resource its Works Program is leading to -
· Increased community dissatisfaction with the level of basic services.
· A continuation of sub standard facilities and infrastructure in many parts of the City which inhibits our tourist potential.
· A lack of improvement in areas that despite waiting decades for improvement, have no prospect, on current projections of being addressed for decades to come.
· Increasingly costly and worrying insurance claims related to pavement surfacing or the lack of it.
· The continual decline in the people friendliness of a large number of suburban centres.
Council's expenditure in the Works area has been declining alarmingly against almost any standard.
The City can simply no longer afford to watch and tacitly support this decimation of its Works budgets, decline in level of service and stand by while much of our infrastructure slowly, and in some cases, rapidly deteriorates to a point where a massive re-prioritising will become inevitable.
It is essential that
1 In the context of the pre-budget discussions currently underway in relation to the 2002/2003 budget, the Works Division be quarantined from any net budget cuts.
2 Funding to the Works Division must be incrementally restored to achieve parity with its position of 7-8 years ago.
There is disturbing evidence that despite Council's commitment to equity within its Works budgets at the time it sets its annual budget priorities, changes that occur throughout the year, are distorting the actual provision of services. This distortion is leaving parts of the City significantly under-funded and under-resourced.
The acceptance of grant funds is responsible in many instances for these distortions.
ACT has for years maintained that Council's growing practice of accepting grant funding from State Government agencies and quangos to carry out works on their behalf, while saving Council paying its own workforce, has had a dramatic effect on our ability to provide the level of service and infrastructure that is rightly deserved by ratepayers. If our Works budgets had been expanded to increase and accommodate our capacity to do these works, I would not be so alarmed. While ever we are building commuter car parks at railway stations, undertaking road works for the RTA or Department of Housing, constructing flood mitigation devices for the Department of Land and Water Conservation and water treatment plants for Sydney Water, all very worthy and worthwhile maintenance and construction projects in their own right that need and deserve to be constructed, we simply cannot undertake the basic repairs, maintenance, reconstruction and construction projects that we as a Local Government Authority are charged with supplying. Council is severely limiting its own capacity to undertake its own priorities work and this is a fundamental weakness. There are two other important downsides to continuing such a practice. The Manager of the Works Division has recently (pre-budget discussions) pointed out that there are clear asset maintenance dangers in accepting grant funding without adequately assessing the ongoing costs to Council in terms of responsibility, maintenance and other issues.
Another important impact of a rising level of grant funding dependence is that Council also runs the risk of becoming increasingly dependent on grant funds. If grant funding arrangements change, Council will be forced to find even more of its scarce funds to begin paying a workforce that has effectively become accustomed to being increasingly funded through grants.
ACT believes that
1 Council must restate and reinforce its commitment to equity in the provision of works to all areas and residents within the City.
2 The Manager Works needs to prepare a recommended strategy for the acceptance of grant funds on the basis of -
* risk assessment
* risk management
* ongoing liability for repairs and maintenance
* impact on Council's ability to undertake the work within current budgetary and program constraints
* impact on Council being required to match grant funding
* impacts on the level of equity for residents throughout the City
and any other factors he deems relevant.
3 Council should adjust its current Works budget (as far as possible) and the 2002/2003 budget priorities so that over the 2001/2003 budget periods, Works funding is distributed on an equitable basis throughout Council's three Works Divisions.
4 The Manager Works should bring forward an annual report which outlines how projects of regional significance can be adequately and equitably funded
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