A local Melbourne council with over 108,000 residents engaged Terra Firma to conduct an enterprise-wide governance review.

This included addressing key management and councillor concerns on the incoming new Local Government Act 2020, privacy, and Freedom of Information.

The council employees and community had expressed great concern over the lack of governance rules that would allow the council to govern themselves and their interactions with the community.

The council also had a new CEO who was looking to ensure the governance was in place in the first 100 days of the job.

Terra Firma conducted the governance review over three months.
Our consultant’s work included extensive stakeholder engagement, review of policies, and drafting a holistic governance framework and associated templates. We conducted change management and instilled key programs such as regulatory training and onboarding of staff

The approach included:

• Review and compliance with the Local Government Act 2020 and any other industry standards.
• Review of over 150 general practices and processes in line with best practice.
• Identification of opportunities for improvement.
• Understanding of gaps in our client’s frameworks, systems and policies.
• Developing recommendations on resourcing requirements.
• Developing recommendations on service delivery models and improvements.
• Stakeholder engagement, idea elicitation and communication.
• Culture assessment, change management and training.

We implemented key changes to our client’s governance, including improvements in Culture and Behaviour, appropriate decision making, and a reduction in the number of policies from over 150 to 45.

Terra Firma’s Governance Review and Recommendation papers were endorsed by the Chief Governance Officer. The recommendations are currently circulating through the Executive Leadership team and council members for their endorsement in January 2021.