CEO's Message
With our population exceeding more than 198,000 in this past financial year, the continued growth of our City has presented exciting opportunities and challenges in delivering significantly increased services for our customers and stakeholders.
We continue to measure levels of satisfaction with our services through regular community and business surveys. With above local government industry average results and high levels of satisfaction with our performance we constantly seek to understand and respond to the community’s needs and expectations.
A significant focus for the Leadership team throughout 2015/16 has been the change management and phased implementation of a new organisation structure. The new structure was developed to add value to our customers’ experience, following extensive consultation with the workforce, and through the Executive’s consideration of a number of other significant influences within the economy; industry; community; and internally within the City over the past few years.
The City has demonstrated its focus and commitment to strong economic development through the adoption of the City’s Economic Development Strategy in June 2016. The Strategy aims to solidify support for local businesses and enhance the City’s focus on transformative initiatives to stimulate major investment, drive economic growth and diversify our economic base. The strategy recognises the need for a sharp focus on strategic partnerships and alliances to provide adequate and well-timed funding and project initiation as well as the delivery of supportive infrastructure.
Advocating strongly for its residents and other stakeholders to improve key transport infrastructure, the City has worked collaboratively with state and federal government and its major landholders. Participation in the “Fund Our Future” campaign through the National Growth Areas Alliance focussed on seeking commitment by the federal government to develop a fund to support outer metropolitan growth councils to meet their growth challenges. The City of Wanneroo engaged local residents and community spokespeople to generate the highest number of emails sent to politicians in the nation.
Work was also started on the City's campaign called Connect Wanneroo, designed to seek a commitment for the road (Mitchell Freeway extension to Romeo Road) and rail (Yanchep extension) for the State election.
The City’s Corporate Business Plan details how we will deliver on the commitments set out in our longer term Strategic Community Plan. Of the 80 operational actions listed for delivery, 69% were either completed or on target for the year. The first stage of our new Project Management Framework was implemented from 1 July 2015 which has helped in the achievement of a higher completion rate of projects and more importantly a much clearer understanding of project progress.
Significant actions included key road infrastructure improvements such as the Lenore Road, Wesco Road and Flynn Drive upgrades and realignments. New and enhanced community facilities included upgrading Kingsway Olympic Sports Clubrooms, a multipurpose room extension to Oldham Park, new Kingsway Baseball Clubrooms and the construction of a regional skate park facility at Wanneroo Showgrounds. The provision of parks for the community included the development of Cheltondale Park and the significant upgrading of Curtis Park.
The City has budgeted for long term financial sustainability and despite increasing costs has delivered on a balanced budget, providing vital community services and progressing much-needed capital projects. The Australian Business Excellence Framework has been adopted to assess management systems and improve the organisation’s performance. The Framework is used as a guide to assist with prioritising improvement efforts to deliver even better value to our community.
I would like to acknowledge and thank the Mayor and Councillors for their vision and leadership, together with the dedication and support of the City’s Executive and staff
Daniel Simms
Chief Executive Officer