Cr Cynthia Watson Mayor City of Boroondara City of Boroondara. Proposed Budget 2020- 2021 Lighter Footprints welcomes the opportunity to comment on the City of Boroondara’s Proposed Budget for 2020-2021. While these consultations are a requirement under legislation, we ask that the Council move beyond mere compliance to put in place a consultative process that enables more meaningful community involvement. Such things as starting consultations much earlier in the budget negotiations and greater availability of relevant information would ensure a more meaningful prospect for the community to influence the results of these deliberations. Lighter Footprints values the contribution of local government Lighter Footprints is a group of concerned residents (now around 2000) mostly from the City of Boroondara who came together in 2006 to work together to meet the critical challenge of climate change. Our members and supporters recognise that climate change has been scientifically demonstrated; that it has become an existential threat to the future of our world; and requires urgent and decisive action by all levels of government. In recent years, local government has taken a more pro-active role in addressing the challenge of climate change. Councils are responding to the growing concern amongst their residents that the world is facing a crisis which requires decisive action at all levels of government and society. Local councils have recognised that they: • have a range of levers that they can use to adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change; and, • as first responders and custodian to much community infrastructure and natural assets, council budgets will be severely impacted by the damage caused by climate change. Boroondara’s Community Plan 2017-2027 makes recognition of the concern that residents have expressed about the climate crisis. We are disappointed, however that the Council has not used those consultations as the basis for a continuing and meaningful conversation with residents around this rapidly evolving threat. Mechanisms such as an advisory committee comprising interested and informed residents and independent experts together with regular ward meetings or workshops would help the Council develop a more ambitious and integrated program. This would provide a strong basis for Council leadership and help the community to adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change than what is currently in place. 1 Boroondara has a number of strategies and commitments to facilitate actions around the theme of the environment and sustainability. These documents, however have produced initiatives that are lacking in ambition and generally accepted as the minimum by councils around Australia. The urgent need to expand and act on these commitments provides Boroondara with the potential to be seen as a leader in this field and to create a further competitive advantage for the area given that it has: • a highly educated population with professional qualifications that could be called upon to contribute ideas, expertise and enthusiasm to address this challenge; • an extremely well-resourced budget given the wealth and financial security of its residents that gives scope for a more ambitious program for adapting to and mitigating the impact of climate change. Community consultations on the proposed budget Consultations that the Council is undertaking around the proposed budget can play a role in increasing the level of community engagement with municipal matters, consolidating trust in the Council and improving the quality of decision making. It is highly unlikely that these ends will be achieved through the current process which is standardised, highly managed by council officers and delays community engagement way beyond the point where decisions have already been made. We are disappointed that similar consultations on last year’s Proposed Budget attracted only 24 submissions. We want to see these consultations go beyond a mere compliance exercise to make a larger contribution to the democratic nature of our Council. As a corporate document, the Proposed Budget is comprehensive in its coverage of Council finances and meets all the requirements that a regulator would expect of a financial document in accordance with the Local Government Act 1989 and the Local Government Model Financial Report. It fails, however to facilitate effective community engagement as required by the Local Government Act 2020 (LG Act 2020) or as the Council has committed itself to in its Community Engagement Policy. The LG Act 20201 identifies a number of governance and supporting principles that enshrines community engagement as an important contributor to good governance. Supporting principles include: ‘… participants in community engagement must have access to objective, relevant and timely information to inform their participation;’ and ‘… participants in community engagement are entitled to reasonable support to enable meaningful and informed engagement; 1 https://www.legislation.vic.gov.au/in-force/acts/local-government-act-2020/003 2 The principle of deliberative engagement mentioned in (s.55(2)(g)) of the Act is important in achieving a transparent and effective process. It is defined in guidelines that accompany the Act in the following way: The principles for community engagement refer to deliberative engagement practices (s.55(2)(g)). The Act does not prescribe what are deliberative engagement practices, however a broad interpretation should be taken. The key characteristics of deliberative engagement are considered to be: • authentic engagement with the community; • good representation of the community in engagement activities; • clear demonstration of how all views have been considered; • accessible and relevant information available to the community to ensure the decision-making process and the community’s level of influence is clear in each instance and that participants are fully informed. Boroondara’s Community Engagement Policy2 was adopted in December 2015 and was due for review in July 2019. The Policy provides a statement on: … how Council will fulfill its commitment to create genuine and transparent opportunities to enable community members to provide feedback about matters of interest to them through Council’s decision-forming process. The policy notes a number of factors that influence the Council’s community consultation and engagement practice. We see the following two factors identified in the policy as particularly significant in consultations surrounding the Proposed Budget: • the increasing community expectation to be actively involved in democratic processes; and • the increasing complexity of public policy issues which, increase the need to provide information to the community about the complexity and to hear back from different voices. We recommend that the Council examine the processes by which it undertakes community consultation on the Proposed Budget to encourage more effective participation by a larger and more representative group of residents. In particular, we recommend: • engagement with residents to commence no later than November of the previous year to ensure that the consultations are not pre-empted by the likelihood that most decisions will be finalised by February (as indicated in the Proposed Budget on pp 141); • publication of the Proposed Budget as a working document that can and will be amended to reflect the community consultations; • conducting workshops or information sessions that give residents the opportunity to question Council officers and Councillors and to gain more information on specific initiatives; 2 https://www.boroondara.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2017-05/Community-Engagement-Policy.pdf 3 • facilitating a more comprehensive public debate at Council Meetings on the Proposed Budget and on all achievement reports including the Annual Report, the Quarterly Performance Report and Monthly Performance Reports including: o banning the use of en-bloc votes when any such reports are considered at Council meetings; o permitting a more open public question time that allows the public to ask a wider number and range of questions without notice of Councillors during Council meetings; o providing a detailed recording in meeting minutes of the discussion around these documents. Capital Works program The Capital Works Program in the Proposed Budget contains several large items of expenditure that are currently being implemented or in the planning stage. Lighter Footprints is interested in the opportunities that such projects can offer through their design, construction and operation for adapting to or mitigating the effects of climate change. These include measures to reduce emissions, increase energy efficiency, manage water usage and provide a demonstration of the commitment that our municipality has to addressing the impact of climate change and contributing to solutions. We encourage the Council to adopt such measures as they also make economic sense because of their capacity to reduce operating costs over the immediate and longer term. This reflects a number of factors including: • the decline in the cost of renewable energy compared to fossil fuel generated power; • the overall reduction in resource utilisation that such measures can produce; and • the increased efficiency of resource utilisation that will result from these measures. We are aware that the Council’s Sustainable Buildings Policy utilises the Greenstar Design and As Built tool from the Green Building Council of Australia to