A Plan for the future
In 2020, the Shire of Derby / West Kimberley (SDWK) commenced a significant review of its Strategic Community Plan (SCP) 2012-2021, and associated documents including the Corporate Business Plan, Asset Management Plan and Workforce Management Plan.
A new decade and the impact of COVID-19 has influenced how the world thinks and operates. The strategic planning process therefore presents a fantastic opportunity to engage with residents and key stakeholders and to better understand the community’s hopes and dreams.
The Council also considers the strategic planning process an ideal vehicle for raising the volume of the community conversation across all sectors and is committed to having a conversation with all 8,000 of its residents in some form or other. To assist this conversation, the Shire has engaged Champions to assist and ensure that all voices are given an opportunity to yell out loud and proud what they want from their Shire, and what they think their community needs.
Background
All local governments are required to plan for the future of their district with an SCP being a minimum requirement. The current SDWK SCP is due for a full review, in order to document Council’s strategic priorities; intentions for asset stewardship and service delivery and associated resourcing implications over the coming decade – all of which will be clearly linked to community aspirations.
For SDWK, development of the SCP is more than an exercise in meeting mandatory requirements or to “tick a box”. Councillors, the SDWK Executive and staff have expressed a genuine desire to harness this as an opportunity to engage their communities, strengthen relationships and partnerships and to understand respective needs, hopes and dreams.
The initial planning process commenced in December 2019 with a consultant engaged to help shape the strategic planning framework. A focus of the planning framework is to build capacity of Councillors and staff to be the backbone to the planning process in order to undertake the majority of the community consultations, review and collate the feedback and shape the overall SCP.
A consultant has been engaged to lead the process; and a Project Officer Strategic Planning commenced in May 2020, as a key resource to drive and coordinate this planning process. The initial project plan was approved by Council on 25 June 2020.
In recognition of the objective to continually review and change the planning process, this project plan is a “live” document. Key amendments present in this version are an extension of timeframes that respond to community and stakeholder feedback that more time is required to undertake consultation in a culturally secure way.
COVID-19 restrictions continue to present necessary constraints such as restricted access to remote Aboriginal communities.