The disappearance of 103 years of local administration brings with it all sorts of challenges and difficulties. The Douglas Shire has just only recently spent years and hundreds of thousands of dollars reorganizing itself to reflect a modern, less centralized management structure, diluting the power of the CEO and replacing it with more responsibility being spread across 4 new general managers in community and corporate, planning and development, engineering and financial categories. The process was very successful but cut at the knees by amalgamation.
The agreed principles of the merger require political will to see them through beyond March 16 2008, where the rubber meets the road on the work and agreements of the transitional committee. If all the work in these transitional agreement falls apart, it will likely infuriate not just the existing DSC staff and their families, but it will enrage Douglas residents. Below are the principles of the merger and they are ones I will be striving to make sure are not derailed;

1. Retention of Douglas Shire Council office in Mossman.
2. Maintaining existing works depots in both Council areas.
3. Support decentralised approach.
4. Maximise use of technology.
5. Minimise the need for relocation of staff.
6. Develop and implement early support mechanisms and/or processes for both staff and resources.
7. Finalise interim organisational structure by the end of 2007.
8. Transition workload to be monitored taking into consideration the importance of maintaining satisfactory levels of service to the community.
9. Every attempt will be made to ensure jobs are as meaningful as possible .

The delivery of services to the $24 million pa Douglas component of Div 10 should if anything improve and this will include the eventual need to open a shop front office of the CRC in Port Douglas whilst the majority of staff and functions of the DSC should remain intact and operational in Mossman.
Planning should be given continued and growing autonomy to handle applications with the Mossman office.
There will be very expensive and difficult transitions to align the data systems of the former DSC and CCC.
Douglas will hopefully benefit from better GIS, digital mapping systems that are badly behind the times in Douglas. Separate filing systems that require layer after layer of file digging to drag up the records of your property, need to be modernised with GIS integration in Douglas.
The emaciation and attrition of staff from Douglas in areas like building inspection and town planning cannot be left unattended by the CRC and the current workload of the DSC under pressure of amalgamation and staff attrition means the peoples of Douglas (both staff and residents) are currently suffering and this must be rectified ASAP.
Prior to amalgamation, Douglas had a leaner ration of staff to productivity than Cairns and where on earth the staff efficiencies in the merger are meant to come from is something only a retired premier or a boy minister could answer. Some say efficiencies of scale in areas like accounts will make savings, but a detailed look at the hours and workloads of Ian Barton’s finance division and its amazing track record, it will be interesting to see how its already handsome efficiency could easily be topped.
With some 75km between most staff homes and the Cairns City offices, it is unreasonable to expect Douglas Staff to relocate simply to move ahead in their careers. It is my commitment to the people of Douglas and its DSC staff, that the delivery of CRC services will remain decentralized and in so doing, ensure equal opportunity for all Douglas Staff in their career aspirations.

CONTACT ROD DAVIS: vote@roddavis.org

MOBILE: 0418 235561 or HOME: 0740 994434

MAIL:  PO BOX 714, Port Douglas, 4877.