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Cooperation and learning rather than competition

Launched in April, the Local Government Community Services Association of Australia's Good Practice and Benchmarking manual is timely given concerns raised at the recent Premiers Conference about the excesses of National Competition Policy.

Titled 'Working Together to Develop Our Communities', the manual is the result of a project initiated in 1998 by LGCSAA. Principal Consultant to the project, Jackie Ohlin, worked with Council staff across Australia to prepare the manual.

The project aims to assist Local Government community development staff to understand how benchmarking and good practice can best be used to enhance their work in local communities. The manual clearly states that LGCSAA's definition of benchmarking is not based on competitiveness, rather it is about networking, cooperation and sharing methodologies, as part of an ongoing learning process.

"Rather than being caught up in today's language of competition, we have opted for the evolving concept of good practice in recognition of building a shared direction for our social environment," said Project Convenor Frank Hornby. "This is consistent with our commitment at a local, state and national level to constant improvement in performance."

He added that, for the first time, LGCSAA has established nationally developed, broad definitions using a community development focus. "Within the context of governance, community development, where Local Government and the community work together to enhance their local area, is clearly the central core of Council business," Frank Hornby said.

The manual provides a value base and framework for the measurement of processes and outcomes resulting from community development work. Acknowledging that each community is distinct and different, tools are provided so each Council can establish what it wants to achieve and how effectiveness and efficiency can be measured locally.

"This is our first attempt to test the reality of outcomes," Frank Hornby said. "As practitioners, we have been good at initiating projects and programs but have not squared ourselves up to be measured. We have not been vigilant enough in analysing our own work by examining the effect of our programs."

However, LGCSAA stresses that this measurement is not about competing against someone else, rather by taking a collaborative approach to benchmarking, Councils can 'value add' by continually learning and fine tuning processes to better meet the needs of its community.

LGCSAA believes this collaborative approach is about building social capital within Local Government, through encouraging participation by all stakeholders thereby enhancing citizenship and community governance.

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