Australia's National Local Government Newspaper Online

World's best at Banyule

Banyule City Council has developed and implemented a simple, cost effective and powerful certification program that could be adapted by Local Governments throughout Australia. The Best Value Plus Certification Program uses a risk management approach to identify quality, occupational health and safety and environmental risks, and put in place comprehensive cross organisational controls.

Every one of Banyule's services is now fully certified under the following three standards:

• AS/NZS ISO 9001:2000 Quality management systems
• AS/NZS ISO 14001:1996 Environmental management systems
• AS/NZS 4801:2001 Occupational health and safety management systems.

"By measuring ourselves against the world's best standards, the Banyule community can feel confident that Council is delivering a high quality service that guards the safety of the community and staff while protecting our precious environment," said Banyule's Business Improvement Manager, Chris Newman. "Council embarked on the quality and safety certification process in 2001 and met its target of having all services certified by December 2005."

Certification was awarded by leading international auditors DLIQ Certification Services (DLIQ). Certification requires that Council's services be externally audited every six months.

"It's an ongoing project," said Chris Newman. "Council has to demonstrate continuous improvement if it wants to maintain the certification, so it can't rest on its laurels."

Banyule's program builds on the Victorian State Government's Best Value program to deliver a strong, sustainable continuous improvement framework. It has contributed to a range of significant benefits for the community, staff and the organisation, including:

• improved community satisfaction - top of the 29 Melbourne metropolitan Councils for overall performance, customer service and waste management (Victorian Government survey 2005)
• reduced WorkCover claims - standard claims down 50 per cent in 2004/05
• insurance premium savings
• measurable improvements in organisational culture (Organisational Cultural Inventory surveys)
• award winning environmental management performance
• improved productivity in a range of different areas through improved efficiency and cross organisational cooperation
• innovative technological solutions that improve efficiency and services including a mobile animal management system, on site tree permits and the cybervan community Internet training program.

All this contributed to Banyule taking out the Performance Improvement category at the 2005 National Awards for Local Government.

For further information contact Chris Newman on (03) 9490 4397.

The following articles are also included in this edition or go BACK to the main page: