Page title

This delivers the second tranche of the WA Government’s landmark local government reforms.

A major component of the reforms is the new Local Government Inspector who will have greater powers to oversee local governments in WA, with a focus on early intervention.

Work will continue to establish the Office of the Inspector and progress the underpinning regulations.

Under the new system, the Inspector and specialised monitors will work proactively with local governments requiring assistance or closer scrutiny to resolve emerging issues before they escalate.

The Bill also overhauls the current system of complaints, providing a much wider range of tools to deal with complaints when a breach or contravention of the Local Government Act 1995 may have occurred.

These milestone reforms will also:

• Clarify the roles and responsibilities of mayors and presidents, councillors and local government CEOs.
• Require councils to adopt a rates and revenue policy to facilitate better financial planning and increase public transparency about rate increases.
• Widen the scope of audit, risk and improvement committees and ensure these committees have an independent chairperson who can be shared between smaller local governments.
• Require councils to document the reasons for closing part of a meeting to the public while reducing unnecessary instances closed meeting.
• Facilitate the shared employment of local government CEOs and senior employees.
• Prevent council members who fail to complete mandatory training from receiving their allowances.
• Prevent inappropriate expenditure of ratepayer funds on council member personal legal expenses.
• Modernise several arrangements including enabling superannuation payments for council members and streamlining the making of local laws.