GANNAWARRA Council admits it has work to do to improve its engagement and direction with the community, after scoring its second-worst community survey results in a decade.
A community survey of council performance presented to the July council meeting showed 400 locals gave the council an overall score of 54 out of 100.
The result was consistent with a long-term downward trend in the assessment since 2014.
Councillor Travis Collier said some controversial decisions over the past year had contributed to the results.
“We do live in a society at the moment that likes to focus on the negative rather than the positive,” he said.
“But look, we do have a bit of work to get back some community favour and I look forward to doing that.”
The overall score of 54 dropped by five points compared to 2021, and scored less than small rural councils (58) and state-wide of 59 points.
It’s best scores came in appearance of public areas, elderly support service, waste management and art centres and libraries, however all, bar public areas, recorded a drop in scores from last year.
The worst performing areas were overall council direction (42 compared to 57 in 2021), community decisions (46), consultation and engagement (46) and lobbying (47).
Councillor Garner Smith said the results hit “rock bottom” two years ago, labelling them “the worst in the state”.
“I don’t know how these compare, but I’m confident in saying there wouldn’t be one councillor here who is satisfied with these results,” he said.
“What concerns me the most is it’s not one year here, one year there, it’s a 10-year trend and overall trend, except maybe rubbish collection and customer service, where everything has been on a constant decline.
“That’s poor and that’s the concerning part. There seems to be a disconnect with the community and council.
“We need to get out there and talk.
“I’d also like to see a question added in the survey asking if people feel their views are being represented in council, asking something like, ‘Do you think your views are being correctly conveyed to council’.
“Something not too loaded, but gives s greater reflection and greater clarity on where we need to look at to make sure we see, in the next three to four years, of uptrend rather than downtrend that we have seen in the past 10 years.”
Councillor Jane Ogden believed COVID-19 lockdowns had an impact on staff and community engagement, and in turn, the survey results.
“It’s been very hard for staff to get out in the community, so that should be taken into account when looking at the results,” she said.”Let’s look at what we need to do as councillors and support our staff to be able to navigate.”
