Council jobs safe for now

Cr Wayne Honor is “on the couch” with the NewsMail.

Max Fleet

THERE was no intention at this time to significantly reduce Bundaberg Regional Council staff numbers, Cr Wayne Honor said.

He said staff numbers were reduced by natural attrition, not replacing people who retired or moved on to other jobs.

“We are not replacing these people, instead we are looking for efficiencies in rearranging work units, and our management team is looking for ways we can gain more efficiencies from the skills already in the organisation,” Cr Honor said.

“A lot of our staff are multi-skilled, and we are putting together units that can move across what once were council boundaries to do work that couldn’t be done before.”

Cr Honor, whose portfolio is roads and drainage infrastructure, said when a capability audit, that was in progress, was completed the council would better understand the expertise that was available in the staffing area.

“I don’t see there’s any thought of losses of jobs,” he said.

Cr Honor said one of the biggest challenges that faced the council after the amalgamation was the different standards of roads that had to be maintained.

“We’re dealing with coastal roads, city roads and country roads, with a different regimen in place for each,” he said.

Cr Honor also raised a common theme, mentioned by all the councillors during this series of interviews – the failure of the state government to fund the amalgamation process properly and the subsequent withdrawal of vital subsidies.

“The perception in the community is that with amalgamation the council will be able to offer better services,” he said.

“But we’re not getting more money, we’re getting less, and this year we lost $600,000 in real terms in road subsidies.”

Cr Honor refused to rate himself, but he said he was proud of the work he and the council were doing.

“All I can say is we should just get on with the job,” he said.