Tag Archives: value

288 – Want to improve performance? – ask your local footy club.

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300 words (2 minutes reading time) by Lancing Farrell

Podcast option:

We are just over halfway through the 2025 AFL season (the major league playing Australian rules football). The premiership contenders are starting to appear.

I figure it is a good time to recap on the AFL-themed posts that have been posted on this site.

First cab off the rank was Tim Whistler with a tongue in cheek look at what it would be like if football was run like local government (and visa versa). Sometimes humour exposes something we otherwise fail to see. The post featured a guest appearance and commentary from Captain Council, our very own council super hero.

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284 – The Public Service Chain Reaction.

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1700 words (18 minutes reading time) by Carole Parkinson

The Deming chain reaction

Tim Whistler cuts straight to the chase. In the case of his latest piece, I think he could do with a little nuancing of what he is proposing. His description of the disruption to ensue if councils can’t manage their finances with a rate cap is probably accurate, but also, avoidable.

I have been talking to executives at councils and it is true that they are grappling with defining and agreeing on what they need to do. Everyone involved in leadership seems to be pulling in a different direction – Finance wants direct funding cuts to balance budgets now; Directors want efficiency drives to fit services into budgets as soon as possible; Councillors want to cut services they think the State should provide and avoid electoral backlash when they stand for re-election in 2028. It is a vicious cycle.

I have a more immediate approach, which neatly fits with Whistler’s focus on infrastructure as the big service, allocating capital first, and, most importantly, reducing expenditure where you should, not just where you think you can.

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280 – Reframing the challenge to councils

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2000 words (20 minutes reading time) by Lancing Farrell

Introduction

Is the challenge that councils face insufficient revenue to cover costs? Or is it that they are providing services outside their remit? Or is it waste and inefficiency in their operations? Is it all of the above? And, if it is, where do you start to address it?

When you look at the different things councils are doing to respond to the rate cap – arguing for its removal or modification to enable higher rate increases, cutting services and service levels, shaving 10% off every budget to force savings, or implementing an ‘efficiency dividend’ through successive budgets – you could be forgiven for wondering if councils are trying to solve the same problem.

Having a common view of the problem to be solved is a start to genuine and effective action across the sector.

I have been thinking about a simple re-framing of the problem councils need to solve in a rate capped environment.

So, what is the problem?

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278 Some new thinking on value

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400 words (4 minutes reading) by Carole Parkinson

I am always on the lookout for new and useful thinking. Sometimes the new thinking is not that new – it is old thinking in a new context. This is why a post on a new Substack caught my attention. It is a novel application of some proven thinking about value .

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224 – Risk taking in local government

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By Colin Weatherby                                                                                               900 words

opportunity.png

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Lancing Farrell raised several important issues in providing advice to a colleague regarding risk management. How does a council balance the pressure not to take risks and fail, with the competing pressure (often from the same sources) to take risks and meet demands to create new value?  

Risk is an interesting concept and there are various definitions. I like to think of it simply as the uncertainties related to achieving your goals. It is about the hazards along the pathway as you make your way towards your destination.

Businesses that don’t take risks will fail. They become uncompetitive or customer satisfaction drops. Either way, they lose business to competitors taking risks to create value that customers want and will pay for. We can all think of the companies that have taken big risks in redefining a service or product to create a new market.

You are probably wondering what this might have to do with local government. Aren’t we just doing what we have always done?

Many councils are. Whether they should be, or whether they will be able to continue to do so, should be questioned. We now live in the ‘age of the customer’ – residents want personalisation, mobility, self-service, rapid response, and efficiency (efficiency for them, not the council). The variability introduced by customers must be quickly and effectively absorbed by the organisation. Complexity, by its very nature, creates risks.

In conjunction with mandated limits on prices (the rate cap) and growing numbers of customers (as Lancing points out, Melbourne is growing rapidly), the rising expectations of residents means that councils must do things differently. Different usually involves risk taking.

I recently attended a training session on developing an organisational risk appetite. It showed me how councils could identify hazards and manage risks differently, yet still satisfy the pressure to stop things going wrong while meeting the demand to create new value. It needs a re-think and a more sophisticated approach to risk and compliance. Continue reading →

207 – Mills, mines, refineries and networks – what do they have to do with local government asset management?

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Posted by Lancing Farrell                                                                          1000 words

disruption

I was talking to a colleague who recently attended a well organised and highly informative national conference on asset management. It was a pity that only three people of the three hundred attending came from local government. The rest were from sugar refineries, steel mills, manufacturing, energy supply, defence, food production, mining, ports, railways, airlines, telephony and numerous other organisations from across Australia. Apparently there was a lot to be learned. So why was local government absent?

Part of the explanation lies in the competing asset management conference run annually by the sector in Victoria. They are well attended by staff from many councils as part of their professional development and to support a sector initiative. I suppose councils don’t see any value in sending staff to a conference that doesn’t focus specifically on local government assets or the way councils have chosen to manage their assets.

A conference theme was disruption. Often it is outsiders who create disruption because they see things differently.  Sometimes it happens when insiders are frustrated by the status quo and they venture outside the organisation’s comfort zone.  Unfortunately, many organisations and industries are incapable of disrupting themselves.  Attending conferences run by your industry is much more comfortable.

It was interesting to hear from my colleague about how other industries view their assets and what they expect from them in the way they are managed. One key difference is that private sector has productive assets that are owned and managed to create shareholder value (i.e. make profits). The value created by those assets is captured by the organisation that owns them. It is different for most public sector assets. Continue reading →

206 – ‘The Outstanding Organisation’ by Karen Martin.

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Posted by Colin Weatherby                                                         870 words

the outstanding organisation

This is a forthright and practical book full of inconvenient truths for local government. I suppose its relevance to local government depends on whether or not you believe that becoming an outstanding organisation is either possible or desirable. Karen Martin says that people know excellence when they see it and they know when they are not excellent. But do our leaders in local government?

This is another book (and I am repeating myself here) that everyone reading it who works in local government will wish they had read years ago. The key idea is that it is chaos that prevents organisations from becoming excellent. Martin says that managers and workers often don’t see the chaos or its causes. In many cases the behaviour causing the chaos is habitual and invisible. Typically, she says organisations respond to chaos by:

  • Becoming accustomed to it so that they think it is normal.
  • Recognising it but thinking that there is nothing that can be done about it.
  • Embracing it as a good thing and developing skills in coping with it.

Councils do all three to a greater or lesser extent. Continue reading →

202 – Essay No. 6 – Local government and public value.

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Posted by Lancing Farrell                                                                                              6500 words

bureacracy

Value is often mentioned in local government when talking about services, particularly ‘best value’. However, there is often inadequate understanding about the different types of value, the difference between private and public value, and how value is actually created and managed by an organisation. Sometimes there is the assumption that because we have been busy, that we must have created something worthwhile.

This essay brings together ideas from several earlier posts and is constructed around four hypotheses:

  1. That there are different types of value created by organisations and for local government public value is the most important.
  2. Public value is the primary value that must be understood and delivered if councils are to deliver what is expected by the community.
  3. Value-led management is a way of managing that could transform local government and make it more responsive and effective in serving the community.
  4. There are simple and effective tools that can be used to improve value creation in local government.

Hypothesis 1: There are different types of value and public value is the most important for local government.

Private value

In a metaphorical sense the value that you add is what you ‘bring to the party’. This is determined by what other people think you have contributed and by thinking about what the party would have been like if you hadn’t arrived.

There are different types of value and it is worth briefly considering the difference between private value and public value. Public value is the collective view of the public or community about what they regard as valuable, especially with regard to the use of public money and authority. Moore describes this as occurring along a spectrum from value that is obtained from public services that is essentially private value, similar to the concept of customer value, to public value that reflects the aggregate value expectations of citizens.

Moore degrees of publicness

At the private value end of the spectrum, the focus is on the individual service recipient and delivering value that satisfies their expectations.   At the public value end of the continuum, the focus is on achieving the social outcomes sought by the community or public. Continue reading →

198 – Essay No. 5 – Local government and leadership.

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Posted by Colin Weatherby                                                                         1300 words

Mark H Moore strategic triangle

Mark H. Moore’s ‘strategic triangle’ – the basis for value-led public sector management

I have been thinking about leadership a lot recently. It has been a recurring theme in posts on this site. Reading Jeffrey Pfeffer’s book has challenged my thinking about how leaders work and what motivates them. It has reinforced some of my scepticism about leaders and why they do what they do. I tend to agree with Peter Drucker’s questioning of the distinction between leadership and management. Ultimately, organisations, particularly in the public sector, have to be managed. The idea that somehow managers aren’t leaders or that leaders aren’t managing doesn’t make sense.

Having said that, I can think of organisational leaders I have known who couldn’t manage. At some point they just ticked the leadership box and assumed the position! Pfeffer explains how and why everyone then goes along with it. Once you are a leader it seems you can get to stay there without any real scrutiny and accountability for your performance. That has definitely been my experience in local government.

I keep imagining myself working in an organisation with an effective leader who manages the organisation for high performance (not career advancement). One that provides clear strategy, direction and goals.  One who coordinates effort to  across the organisation to achieve those goals. In particular, I have been thinking about how they could do that in local government. Continue reading →

194 – Essay No. 4 – Local government and customer service.

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Posted by Lancing Farrell                                                                              4500 words

basil fawlty

Customer service is, and should be, a major concern for local government. After all, councils are service organisations. Sometimes there is confusion about exactly what customer service means, how it relates to public service delivery, and what aspects of service are most important to get right in local government.

This essay focuses on three hypotheses:

  1. That ‘customers’ in local government are different to the customers described in most customer service literature and encountered by most service organisations.
  2. There are six main opportunities for local government to improve service to customers.
  3. There are simple tools available that can assist councils in getting service delivery and customer service right.

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