Wellington takes leave from shire over information dispute

SURF Coast Shire councillor Heather Wellington will step away from the council for three months, saying officers are denying her access to important information.

At last month’s council meeting, Cr Wellington’s application to take leave from her duties as a Winchelsea Ward councillor from Wednesday, December 12 to March 18 was accepted.

In a statement emailed to this newspaper beforehand, Cr Wellington said she had worked hard to represent residents and contribute to the good governance of the shire over the past six years, “but to do my job well I need reasonable access to information”.

She said a new shire protocol stated that “councillors should not request access to documents or copies of documents that relate to operational matters or decisions made by officers under their delegated authorities”.

“The shire is applying the prohibition to all requests by councillors for information, even when access to specific documents is not requested. Consequently, a lot of information held by the shire is inaccessible to individual councillors without CEO or majority councillor support, other than via prolonged and limited Freedom of Information (FOI) processes.”

She said she had been unable to get access to information on four recent issues, including legal advice on which the shire relied to refuse a resident access to documents under FOI, the lease and market valuations for the Winchelsea Shire Hall, and the breakdown of planned expenditure of $150,000 allocated by the council to improve roads maintenance.

“I cannot meet standards of good governance and I cannot properly represent the people who elected me under these circumstances.”

Speaking at the council meeting, shire chief executive officer Keith Baillie said the shire’s officers were “committed to supporting councillors to fulfil their role under our system of local government, including their ability to represent the community.

“This role is when councillors come together as the council and we provide extensive opportunities for councillors to be fully informed when they make decisions.

“The Local Government Act outlines that operational matters are the responsibility of the organisation and this includes decisions made by officers under delegation.”