We are the creators of the Government Framework©

Planning aims to manage how cities, towns and regions grow and change in a way that benefits the public interest. It’s about better outcomes for people, places, the environment and the economy, and therefore deals with livability, sustainability and prosperity. Planning is becoming increasingly essential to how we deal with some of the issues and opportunities facing municipalities and councils in Local Government.

Some examples include the following:

• Accommodating a rapidly growing population as well as the challenge of population decline
• Making sure we have the right infrastructure and industries in place to support communities, the economy and jobs growth
• Ensuring our communities become more resilient to natural hazards and
• Protecting the natural environment, green space, natural resources and heritage.

An objective of an Integrated Planning and Reporting framework is more than just producing documents – it requires commitment from all levels of government and other stakeholders including business, industry, education, health services, housing providers, environmental groups and others. It also involves developing partnerships between these organisations and communities. Three major parties are involved in the development of an integrated local government plan: the local government administration, the municipality/council and the community. Each party has a unique role and responsibility for effective and sustainable integrated planning and reporting in adopting a vision for the future, a strategic community plan and corporate business plan.

• a clearly stated vision for the future viability of the local government area.
• a strategic community plan linking the community’s aspirations with the municipality/council’s vision and long term strategy
• a corporate business plan integrating resourcing plans and specific council plans with the strategic community plan.

The intent of this information is to add value and build on the current planning approaches and expertise of municipalities/councils, not to replace their current work.

When participating in decisions about planning and development matters both elected officials/members municipal/council employees must be aware of legislative frameworks for managing conflicts of interest. This ensures all decision-making is in the public interest and protects against corruption.

Performance reporting is a key part of our strengthening municipality/councils program promoting council transparency, accountability and performance and underpins benchmarking that allows users to find their municipality/council and compare its performance to that of other similar municipalities/councils. It also allows users to find extensive information on what they do, how they work and where to go to make a complaint.

GovernmentFrameworks.com Local Government Framework©

The Local Government Framework as a corporate performance management methodology and system looks beyond traditional Integrated Planning and Reporting by adding corporate objectives, department plans, master and governance plans. The purpose of its design is to consider and improve traditional integrated strategic planning and reporting frameworks by identifying all other support areas needed by municipalities/councils such as corporate objectives, department plans and all master and governance plans.

This improved planning system also helps municipalities/councils to better connect with their communities to gain a more detailed understanding of their area and its regional context. The process also provide opportunities to streamline their operations into the future.

This frameworks now includes in addition to the asset management and long-term financial plans, areas such as capital projects, risk management, meetings/resolutions, grants, policies and more, so they can develop a full range of their own plans in a structured way, aligned to a clear statement of shared values and objectives.

It recognizes that municipal/council plans and policies should not exist in isolation and that they are connected. This framework allows councils to draw their various plans together, understand how they interact and get the maximum leverage from their efforts by planning holistically. It allows department managers for the first time to gain a view of their goals, tasks, actions and progress updates on a single workboard page. Reporting through a single interface can eliminate over 60 separate systems (Word, Excel and other databases) resulting in an 80% time saving for managers and their teams as they consolidate key information across their municipality/council in a single, multi-relationship database.

Municipalities/councils play a vital role in procuring the goods, services and works needed to deliver key council services and infrastructure to the community. The Local Government Framework recognizes the importance of ‘service performance principles’ that guide the way services are defined and delivered. Local governments deliver a range of services to meet the needs and wants of their communities. This is called service delivery and covers:

• internal services such as strategic planning, HR, finance
• external services such as waste collection, childcare services, parks maintenance and development application processing.

The Local Government Framework also addresses ‘business as usual’ and the following overarching governance principles that must be given effect through the performance of a municipality/council’s role:

• priority to be given to achieving the best outcomes for the municipal/council community including future generations
• economic, social, and environmental sustainability (including climate change risk) is to be promoted
• the community is to be engaged in strategic planning and strategic decision making
• innovation and continuous improvement are to be pursued
• collaboration with other municipalities/councils and statutory bodies is to be pursued

There are many strategic planning models and frameworks — some are tried and true, others are newer and more adaptive, and planners and managers may be more familiar with some methods than others. GovernmentFrameworks.com and their Local Government Framework is ideally suited to the complexities at municipality/council level due to the additional inclusion corporate objectives, department plans and all master and governance plans.

Our senior strategist team at GovernmentFrameworks.com can help you implement this framework as your path to planning maturity. Get in touch today for a confidential discussion and we’ll promptly get back to you.