Call for clarity about the “city” and the “council”

COUNCILLORS at the City of Greater Geelong have stressed the distinction between the “city” and the “council” as they adopted a new Public Transparency Policy last week.
The new policy, as well as a new set of governance rules also adopted by at their meeting on Tuesday last week, are part of the council’s compliance with the new Local Governance Act 2020.
The Public Transparency Policy acknowledges the importance of transparent decision making in promoting a positive and productive relationship with the community.
It identifies the council’s transparency and information sharing commitments, such as publication of meeting minutes, the annual report and the register of interests, and how residents can access this information. It also outlines policies for the protection of security information.
The Governance Rules describe how the council will make decisions fairly and conduct meetings, how records of decision-making processes are kept and procedures for how the mayor and deputy mayor are elected. The rules now include gender-neutral language and a new provision for conducting meetings remotely.
The city received six submissions from community members during a three-week period in July and August.
In response to feedback on the Transparency Policy, councillors requested:

• A review of the policy by September 2022
• That chief executive officer Martin Cutter raise awareness in the community about the terms and meanings of words used in the policy such as “City” and “Council”, and
• That all new or reviewed policies incorporate reference to the Transparency Policy.

Geelong mayor Stephanie Asher said the words “city” and “council” were not interchangeable.
“There is some work to do to provide clarity in the community regarding the terms ‘Council’ – being the 11 elected community representatives – and ‘the City’ – being the City of Greater Geelong as an organisation, led by the CEO.”
“We have asked the CEO and our communications team to help raise awareness of the roles and responsibilities of these two distinct groups.”
She said all councillors were “absolutely unanimous” in welcoming more transparency and open communication with the community.
“These two documents represent some really solid, quality work from our governance team.
“And further to the work by city officers, the current council has driven a number of key policies and initiatives to improve transparency and fairness. These include new guidelines for our community grants, a comprehensive Social Infrastructure Plan for the whole community, the introduction of live streaming of council meetings, and twice the number of meetings to previous councils – among many other examples.”
In response to feedback to the Governance Rules, councillors have also approved a change allowing members of the public to present petitions directly to the council, independent of councillors.
The policy and governance rules are available to read in full online at geelongaustralia.com.au.