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

4. THE DELIVERY PROGRAM
4.6 Allocating responsibilities
Essential Element 3.5
The Delivery Program must allocate responsibilities for each action or set of actions.
One of the important requirements of both the Delivery Program and the Operational Plan is to
identify who will be responsible within Council for completing the various projects or activities. This
gives a clear picture of expectations, accountabilities and timeframes.
For the Delivery Program, the minimum requirement should be to allocate responsibilities to at least
‘director’ level, but it is preferable to allocate to a further level below this so that project managers,
as well as their Directors, are held responsible for delivering outcomes.
For example, if one of the strategies in the Delivery Program is “Ensure libraries are socially
inclusive and user friendly” then the Program could nominate the Director of Community Services as
being the responsible person for delivering this action. However, it would be preferable to also
nominate the Manager of Library Services, as this makes it much clearer that responsibility for
delivering the action sits within a particular section of the Community Services division.
For the Operational Plan, responsibilities should be allocated to at least ‘middle management’ level.
Councils will need to interpret this within the context of their own organisational structures, but the
intention is that, as the plans get more detailed, the allocation of responsibility will get more specific.
For example, it is not sufficient to nominate the Director of Works and Services as the sole person
responsible for a list of proposed road maintenance works in the Operational Plan. At this level of
detail, the allocation of responsibilty should be, for example, with the Manager of Roads.
One of the General Manager’s key responsibilities in implementing the plans is to ensure that
council staff understand the bigger picture, including how their particular duties are helping to
achieve strategic objectives and better outcomes for the community.
One way of doing this is to link Delivery Program and Operational Plan responsibilities to the staff
performance system, so that they become an intrinsic part of a staff member’s regular performance
review with his or her supervisor/s. The diagram that follows shows how the relationships work.
Planning & Reporting Manual Page 94 of 115