Plan set to boost other councils

By Sarah Schwager
CITY of Greater Dandenong CEO Carl Wulff says the plan to save ratepayers $4 million which councillors rejected last week looks set to be taken up by other councils.
Councillors last week voted to reject a Strategic Services Partnership (SSP) contract because of concerns the plan would damage service delivery and reduce staffing.
Mr Wulff said he was surprised at councillors’ decision to reject the 10-year contract.
The decision left Mr Wulff having to change the speech he was due to give on the SSP model at the Local Government Professionals (LGPro) conference last Thursday.
Dandenong Residents’ and Ratepayers’ Association (DRRA) president Jim Houlihan, who opposed the SSP model being implemented in Greater Dandenong, said the CEO’s planned speech was pre-emptive.
“The chief executive obviously presumed he had council’s backing when he decided to do the speech last year.”
But Mr Wulff said he still went ahead with the speech, and talked about general issues facing the council as well as the SSP model.
“It is still a good model,” he said. “I am sure some other councils will take on the model within Victoria.
“There is quite a lot of interest.”
Touted as one of the biggest decisions affecting Greater Dandenong’s future, the SSP was one step from the contract being signed last week, with councillors and council staff having travelled to the United Kingdom last year to analyse similar set-ups.
The SSP contract was to be awarded to United Customer Management Solutions.
Mr Houlihan said even if the SSP was a good model, there had not been enough community consultation about it.
“I hope now the concept is being tested, tried and discussed with the community,” he said. He said the councillors, especially the new councillors, were merely reflecting the concerns of the residents they represented in rejecting the proposal.
“If they had more information and more opportunity to investigate and analyse it, there might have been a different outcome,” Mr Houlihan said.
Mr Wulff said it looked liked the model would not go before council again unless some councillors resolved to reconsider the proposal.