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SSS Panel Report

In December 2006, the Systemic Sustainability Study Panel released their final report, In Your Hands: Shaping the future of Local Government in Western Australia - (available here). The release of this report culminated in months of work by the Panel and WALGA to consider the long term sustainability of Local Government.

Panel Members

The SSS Panel members were:

  • Professor Greg Craven
  • Professor Fiona McKenzie
  • Mr George McCullagh

Panel Terms of Reference

The Systemic Sustainability Study panel is to inquire into, report and provide recommendations on:

  • Generally, the adequacy of Western Australia's local government system and its operations, its strengths and weaknesses, and means by which it might be improved.
  • The structural, financial, administrative and other principles upon which Western Australia's system of local government should be based.
  • Contemporary social communities of interest, environmental catchments and economic clusters to help define the Local Government arrangements (both structural and functional) that would best facilitate sustainable service delivery.
  • Local Government infrastructure assets, including compilation of a state-wide inventory of all such assets, their gross value, method of depreciation, replacement timing, cost of maintenance and other relevant matters identified by the Study.
  • The adequacy of existing Local Government funding mechanisms, such as rates, debt, fees and charges, fines and the desirability of mechanisms identified from other jurisdictions, such as developer levies, product sales, business activities or other mechanisms or trends identified by the Study.
  • The economic capacity of the existing Local Government structure to fund the service and infrastructure obligations it currently has and to recommend how any deficit might be addressed.
  • Current and expected future labour market issues impacting on the sector and what strategies might be adopted to address these issues; and
  • Recent and expected future demographic trends and their likely impact on the Local Government sector and associated strategies to deal with them.
  • Any proposals, initiatives or directions which might significantly improve the operations of Western Australia's system of local government.

SSS Panel Study Reports

As the SSS project progressed, the SSS Panel released a number of reports which are available for download below. The first was a discussion paper, Systemic Sustainability of Local Government in Western Australia, and then other reports were released before the final panel report, In Your Hands.

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