Integrated Planning and Reporting Manual - Division of Local ...

3. THE RESOURCING STRATEGY
Where do we want to be
Council’s Asset Management Strategy must fit within the vision and objectives of its Community
Strategic Plan. If the Strategy does not fit within the vision and objectives set out in the Community
Strategic Plan, it is on the wrong track. Similarly, the Community Strategic Plan needs to respond to
the council’s asset management realities.
Central to this process are forecasting the service delivery needs and the capacity to meet them on
a short, medium and long-term basis.
The answer to the question ‘Where do we want to be’ lies in the outcomes wanted by the
community and may challenge current attitudes and practices. The key outcome is the provision of
services responsive to the community’s needs within available resources. This outcome sets the
framework for a council’s strategic planning. It identifies the strategic considerations to be met.
This section of the Strategy should therefore address where the council wants to be both in terms
of:
improving Council’s asset management practices, and
aligning Council’s asset profile and performance with its Community Strategic Plan.
It also requires an understanding of what ‘good’ or ‘best practice’ asset management is, in order to
determine where the Council wants to be and the areas where it believes it should focus its
attention.
Typical elements of future considerations include:
unchanged outcomes
new outcomes
outcomes that will cease to be met
broad information on changing demographics and industry
likely technological changes.
A council will have already identified many of these elements during the research and information
gathering it has undertaken as part of its Community Strategic Planning process.
How will we get there – identifying and addressing the gaps
Once Council has identified its existing asset profile and performance and its current asset
management practices, and where it wants these to be, it can then embark on identifying a path to
addressing the gaps.
A ‘gap analysis’ would include a comparison between the current situation and future objectives to
highlight where strategies will need to be developed to cater for any changes, in accordance with
Council’s evaluation of the relevant economic, social, environmental and civic leadership
considerations.
The gap analysis should include:
the results of any risk assessment undertaken to identify asset management improvement
needs
details of the benefits and costs of addressing the gaps
realistic timeframes for addressing the gaps
identification of the priority actions to achieve Council’s strategic goals and its Asset
Management Policy.
The gap analysis will then form the basis of an improvement plan to address the gaps.
Planning & Reporting Manual Page 71 of 115