Dubbo Regional Council has broken up its Wellington branch division as part of a restructure that will also enable it to advertise its string of vacant positions.
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From this week all staff will belong to one of six divisions and report to the relevant director in charge.
The Wellington branch division that came into being at the forced merger of the Dubbo City and Wellington councils in May is no longer.
The state government required merged councils to adopt an integrated organisational structure.
The structure adopted in May - which included seven divisions - was not integrated, council acting interim general manager David Dwyer said in a report to an extraordinary council meeting on September 14.
The interim integrated organisational structure adopted at the extraordinary meeting closely resembles the make-up of the former Dubbo City Council with its six divisions.
Council administrator Michael Kneipp said the new model, developed in consultation with staff, would allow the council to start “advertising some of the 20-plus vacancies we have at the moment”.
Under the rules, positions must first be advertised internally, and if not filled, they could then move to the external market, Mr Kneipp said.
“Now we have certainty we can get out and advertise those positions and get some more people into town,” he said.
“There will be some positions which can be filled from within Dubbo and Wellington and the villages around but with that number of people, and some of them are fairly expert jobs, then I think we’ll be seeing outside recruitment.”
Mr Kneipp told of a number of benefits with the change.
“Everybody within Dubbo Regional Council will be reporting to a director who has expertise in the area they’re working in,” he said.
“That’s very good for the corporate governance of the organisation and it’s good for the development of staff in those areas as well because they have managers who have that specific expertise.”
But he noted it remained an interim structure, with the council to finish a review of its operations in the next six months.
Mr Kneipp praised Karen Roberts, who had headed up the Wellington branch division, and was earlier the the acting general manager of the Wellington Council.
“She’s done a fantastic job,” he said.
Mr Kneipp anticipates Ms Roberts had “a very big future” with Dubbo Regional Council, and reported she would move into a new project management office, being led by Murray Wood.
“Over the next 12 months they’ll be working intensively on all those integration matters,” Mr Kneipp said.
Faye Wheeler
I have been a journalist for more than a decade and in that time I have been keeping Daily Liberal readers up to date about issues affecting them and what's happening in their community. Throughout my career I have covered a range of rounds and most recently I have been focusing on the business round.
I have been a journalist for more than a decade and in that time I have been keeping Daily Liberal readers up to date about issues affecting them and what's happening in their community. Throughout my career I have covered a range of rounds and most recently I have been focusing on the business round.
