Clear, accessible communication is a priority
Lane Cove Council’s communications are out of step with community expectations. More transparency and clarity is a must.
Community members deserve clear, accessible communication from their Council.
The decisions of local Council have direct and profound impacts on the community. And never has it been more important for community members to have a clear understanding of what Council is doing and planning.
Nothing beats face-to-face contact with Councillors and Council officers, or looking at large scale plans and visiting sites to get a sense of the impact a development will have on you. While Covid-19 has made this a challenge in recent times, Council needs to make its communication and information sharing more transparent.
Most of the communication around what Council is doing and planning is web-based. And so are the details of the plans, policies and codes that should govern Council’s actions.
Unfortunately this information is not easy to find. The Council website is hard to navigate. It is not intuitive. It is often a challenge to find a specific item.
Try finding the Council policy document on the conduct of community consultation. You’ll find it difficult unless you just happen to know that the policy is called the Community Engagement Policy.
And, with the exception of those who follow Council processes in detail, it is not easy to get information on the totality of a proposal.
Try to get the full picture of what is planned for the Lane Cove golf course precinct for instance – the actual course, the Sports and Recreation Facility, the Stevenson Street upgrade and the Northwood roundabout. You will find most of this information has been fragmented and you will find that there is almost no information on the roundabout.
It is a tedious (almost impossible) task to track the implementation of Council resolutions. And have you ever tried to work through your way through a set of complex DA documents with the inbuilt timeout mechanism?
Accessible, complete and integrated information is what the community is after.
A Council that has confidence in the transparency of the conduct of its business should make this a priority.
This transparency would enhance community confidence that Council is conducting its business in accordance with its approved processes and plans.
And it would enhance community confidence that their Councillors and Council officers are making decisions that are fully informed and based on information available to the community, to the extent that this is possible.
With an improvement in information access through Council’s website, requests for information under the GIPAA (FOI) process should reduce.
Processing of information under GIPAA requests takes time and can become an expensive and legalistic process.
This should become less of an issue with a Council that acknowledges the right of a community member to open access to the information they seek.
