Director role cut in City management shakeup

CHANGES at the top of the City of Ballarat’s organisational structure continue with interim CEO Janet Dore announcing the axing of one of the five director positions.

In what Ms Dore called a “proposed” realignment of roles and responsibilities, the municipality’s executive leadership team would be cut to five positions in all, including hers.

“This realignment is designed to rebalance the structure of the organisation and to create an organisation that is better equipped to deliver on council’s commitments and the community’s expectations,” she said.

Key among the changes is the creation of four new areas of management: corporate services, assets and infrastructure, community wellbeing, and strategy and growth.

Ms Dore herself will take control of governance which includes legal affairs, risk and insurance, compliance, procurement, audit, and council meetings.

She’ll also directly oversee an area called people and culture that looks at workplace relations, occupational health and safety, payroll, organisational development, and diversity.

“During my time here, I propose to have the people and culture and governance functions report directly to me, so I can be across the cultural changes we need to make to improve the culture and governance processes at the City of Ballarat,” Ms Dore said.

“A key focus of my role is to implement changes relating to the findings of the Ombudsman’s report.”

The corporate services section, which is essentially the old business services, has lost all of the governance, HR and fleet management areas but retains finance, IT and picks up “business and service improvement”.

Assets and infrastructure will unsurprisingly cover the City’s asset management and capital works, as well as parks, roads, and major projects, along with fleet management.

Community wellbeing covers an extensive range of municipal services including family, child and aging services, community events, communications and marketing, customer service, emergency management and community engagement.

Lastly, strategy and growth will focus on development, planning, traffic and transport, the airport, along with regulatory services including local laws and parking, the animal shelter, and sport, recreation and the aquatic centre.

“These changes aim to transform and improve our business operations and service delivery to our community,” Ms Dore said.

With the number of director positions cut from five to four, it does amount to one theoretical job loss.

However, with two of the five pre-Ombudsman’s report directors, Terry Demeo and Glenn Kallio, having resigned, and Cameron Cahill – current head of innovation and organisational improvement – set to depart before the end of July, there aren’t any actual people getting fired.

However, as part of the realignment, all director roles will be opened up and the two remaining current directors, Neville Ivey and Angelique Lush, will be required to apply for the new positions if they want them.

“It is proposed that the new director positions will be declared vacant once the final structure is confirmed,” Ms Dore said.

“Once the proposed organisational structure is finalised, I will confirm any acting arrangements to temporarily fill the director roles where needed until they are permanently filled through the recruitment process.

“The new director positions will be advertised externally, and the recruitment process will be transparent and conducted by an independent and reputable recruitment company.

“There are no planned reductions in positions to the levels below the executive leadership team.”

Ms Dore said she was seeking feedback from municipal workers on the new structure and would send up update to staff by 31 July.

The proposed changes are the latest chapter in the fallout from May’s damaging State Ombudsman’s report into systemic issues within senior leadership of the City of Ballarat.

The report, which was tabled in State parliament, found then CEO Justine Linley and director Terry Demeo were involved in improper hiring practices, and there were issues with Mr Demeo’s use of a City credit card and his oversight of invoice splitting.

Subsequently, four of the six members of the municipality’s senior leadership team at the time have either quit, been fired, or announced they are departing.