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Strategic approach to service delivery

Kalamunda Shire in Perth's East has developed a Project Management System covering all aspects of service delivery.

With a population of 48,000 and 145 effective full time staff, Kalamunda Shire was particularly concerned that priority tasks were being overlooked, work loads were unmanageable and expectations unrealistic.

The Project Management System, introduced in Planning Services in 1995, is a best practice framework allowing decision makers to ensure strategic needs are met, and service delivery is properly managed.

"Our service area was overrun with day to day business," said David Vaughan, Chief Executive Officer. "This system now ensures resources are allocated to meet Council's and the community's objectives."

The system provides the following outcomes.

• Ensures all service activities pursue corporate goals.
• Prioritises tasks to maintain manageable workloads
• Establishes clearly defined outcome statements and associated resource allocations
• Provides a basis for selecting the most appropriate method of service delivery, either in house or outsourcing
• Measures efficiency through setting out service costs
• Optimises performance through establishing sufficiently challenging goals to make full use of the abilities and capacities of staff
• Increases accountability through agreed goals and time frames
• Measures performance by gauging outputs against alternative service providers.

"The system effectively manages tasks ranging from major planning strategy preparation to administrative functions, such as reviewing in house processes," said Stuart Devenish, Executive Manager Planning and Development Services.

"It is generally true that 'what you measure is what you get'. Too often, overall performance is assessed against daily routine tasks which means projects or difficult tasks can be put off or overlooked. This system ensures a balanced assessment, and guarantees correct focus on all areas of service delivery."

For further Information contact Stuart Devenish, telephone (09) 293 2111.

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