Welcome messages

The City of Boroondara’s Annual Report 2017-18 highlights the achievements and challenges of the past year. It reports on how we are meeting the strategic objectives set out in the Council Plan 2017-21.

Message from the Mayor | Message from the CEO 

A message from the Mayor 

Councillor Jim Parke 

My fellow Councillors and I work alongside the organisation and our community to lead the strategic direction for the City of Boroondara and I am proud to present the Annual Report 2017-18 as a summary of the work we have accomplished over the past year.

With a growing City, and the challenges this brings, it is vital we properly plan for our City’s future, making decisions with the long-term interests of our community in mind. 

So this year we invested more than $61.62 million in renewed and new facilities and infrastructure, including $6.12 million on our parks, open spaces and streetscapes and $32.84 million on community buildings.

We completed the redevelopment of the Balwyn Library so it now includes additional casual reading and study areas, a large community meeting room, an improved layout allowing better access to the collection, and better technology.

We delivered the new $17.2 million Greythorn Community Hub, providing much-needed services and programs to the local community.

We planned the redevelopment of Balwyn Community Centre, designing a space that will allow for early years services and recreational activities, and learning programs for all ages. Construction will begin in 2018, with the centre due for completion in 2019.

Also this year, in collaboration with the local community, we completed designs for a new communal food growing and sharing hub for local residents on land adjacent to Earl Street, Kew with construction set to begin in 2018-19. 

On top of all these exciting infrastructure projects, we have continued to deliver the services which benefit our whole community to a high standard. These include:

• $7.28 million spent on library services providing a seven day a week service across the City – with more than 1 million visits and nearly 2.3 million loans last year. 
• $2.69 million spent on aged, disability and health services, such as immunisation, aged care and disability support for vulnerable members of our community, and delivering almost 80,000 hours of in-home care for the elderly and people with a disability, and more than 30,000 immunisations to infants and children across Boroondara. 
• $3.14 million spent on families and youth services. We also lease 38 buildings at little or no cost to community organisations providing long day care, occasional care and kindergarten services. 
• Collecting 69,559 tonnes of waste from kerbside bins.

Working with the Boroondara community is a privilege. All we have achieved this year has been with the support and partnerships of our residents, local businesses, community groups and Council staff and I would like to thank everyone who has made a contribution towards delivering Council’s vision over the past year. 

I look forward to continuing to work with you all in the year ahead.

Cr Jim Parke 
Mayor 

A message from the CEO 

Phillip Storer
Chief Executive Officer

I am pleased to present Council’s Annual Report for 2017-18 financial year.

This report details how we met our objectives and commitments in the Council Plan 2017-21 and Budget 2017-18. It provides accountability to our community and it allows us to reflect on our performance; where we have succeeded and where we may need to improve.
 
Importantly, I am pleased to confirm Council completed 100 per cent of our Annual commitments and our financial position continues to remain sound. 

The annual state-wide Local Government Community Satisfaction Survey rated Boroondara, yet again, as one of the top performing Councils across the state. While we are proud of this result we are always looking for ways we can improve. 

We have continued to focus on delivering a better customer experience for our community to ensure your interactions with us are as easy and accessible as possible. Our goal is to ensure you have choice, and are able to access the information, help and services you need without having to take time out of your busy day to call or come into Council offices. 

To achieve this we have continued to make improvements to the design and information on our website and continued our roll out of online forms with great success. In fact more than 30,000 online forms were completed in 2017-18 with 93 per cent of users who provided feedback rating them ‘Very easy’ or ‘Easy’ to complete.

Ensuring all members of our community benefit from our customer experience improvements is vital and I’m proud to say our website has achieved accessibility certification from Vision Australia.

Council has an important role to play in minimising Boroondara’s impact on the environment. We developed and adopted the Waste Minimisation and Recycling Strategy 2017 to provide a strategic approach to sustainable waste management over the next five years. Our vision is to continue to provide more efficient and effective waste services while further reducing waste sent to landfill.

We are also aiming to be able to receive and assess all planning applications digitally, removing paper from all application, enforcement and appeal services provided by Council by the end of the 2018-19 financial year. As well as time and cost savings, a paperless process will allow customers to submit applications online.

We are undertaking a Council-wide project, in partnership with four of our neighbouring councils, to provide $2.5 million of energy efficiency upgrades at our four largest buildings. These upgrades are guaranteed to pay for themselves in less than 10 years through reduced energy bills and maintenance.

Following community consultation in 2016-17, Council adopted the Tree Strategy 2017-27 which plans for the health and sustainability of the approximately 130,000 trees on Council-managed land to ensure we protect and grow our urban forest.

We know that protecting the character of the local neighbourhoods is important to you. This year, Council has continued our assessment of properties across Boroondara to identify and protect valued heritage places of local significance through the introduction of heritage controls.

Our ability to meet community needs is significantly enhanced by the enthusiasm and engagement of our community. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the community for their support and input into the work of Council. 

Thank you also to the dedicated employees at Council for their commitment and hard work in delivering a diverse range of services and infrastructure. I look forward to working with you all in the year ahead to keep delivering for Boroondara.
 
Phil Storer
CEO