City of Vincent No 1

City of Vincent jumps to No. 1 on Community Scorecard!

Independent research has revealed that the City of Vincent is now the Number 1 local government among 25 Western Australian councils as both ‘A Place to Live’ and as ‘A Governing Organisation’ as rated by our community – jumping from its previous position of third last in 2010.

Councillors and staff would like to thank everyone who took the time to complete the survey and provide their feedback.

If you don’t have much time and you’d like a brief summary of everything, then check out our newspaper advert here.

The Catalyse Community Scorecard surveys households across a local government area, with 25 local councils participating in the survey research over the past two years. Of those 25 councils, the City of Vincent ranked first, receiving an overall performance score of 82 out of 100, compared to 16th out of 18 councils in 2010.

As part of the independent research, Catalyse mailed invitations to complete the survey to 1,000 randomly selected households, and the survey was also widely promoted in print media and through the City’s digital and social media channels. Overall, 556 residents submitted a response, resulting in a statistically reliable sample size (you can read more about the processhere).

The survey measures a number of different areas, including basic industry standards for governance, communication, community engagement and service delivery.

It also found that the City of Vincent was ranked the highest in 18 categories (out of about 40), which means we’re currently setting the benchmark in all of these areas:

  • Place to live
  • Governing organisation
  • The City’s leadership within the community
  • Developing and communicating a clear vision for the area
  • How the community is consulted about local issues
  • Elected Members’ understanding of community needs
  • How open and transparent the City’s processes are
  • How the community is informed about local issues
  • Explaining reasons for decisions and how residents’ views are taken into account
  • The City’s social media presence
  • The City’s newsletter
  • Services and facilities for families
  • Beatty Park Leisure Centre
  • Playgrounds, parks and reserves
  • Festivals, events and cultural activities
  • The area’s character and identity
  • Mix and diversity of housing types
  • Efforts to promote and adopt sustainable practices

 What do our Mayor and CEO have to say?

City of Vincent Mayor John Carey said the scorecard was recognition that the reform program being driven by the Council was paying dividends for the local community.

“The City of Vincent has been undergoing the most significant changes in the 21 year history of the organisation and it’s great to see our community has noticed the difference we’re making.

“Our focus has been to genuinely lift transparency and accountability standards at the City, to be more aware of and responsive to community needs and to make our streets and town centres better places to live, work and play.”

“We need to always be prepared to look at what we do, not be afraid to review our performance – and ask can we do better? Or better yet, ask our community if we can do better!

“When asked about which areas we could improve upon, our community told us – our planning and development, parking, and traffic management – so we’ll be working hard on these areas.”

Vincent CEO, Len Kosova, who joined the City in August 2014 amidst the State’s local government reform program and Vincent’s own $8 million budget deficit said “As an organisation, we’ve been on a significant change journey in recent years and it’s pleasing for all staff to now see that our efforts are making a real difference in our community.

“We don’t want to rest on our laurels and will be improving our focus on the areas that our community told us we could do better in.

“We’ll be conducting the survey again in two years and will be working very hard in that time to maintain or improve our community’s satisfaction with Vincent as a place to live and as a governing organisation”, said the CEO.

Related documents for you to explore

In the interest of being open and transparent, feel free to read the below documents:

» The full page advert (a great summary of the results)
» The 2016 Community Scorecard results/report
» The 2010 Community Scorecard results/report
» The 2010 Community Scorecard graph showing our 16th place ranking

Business Scorecard

The results of the Business Scorecard survey will be released next week via our digital and social media channels.

Where to from here?

Now that we have a benchmark, we’ll always be trying our best to never slip below this line. Why? Because we believe that things can always be better.

The results of this Community Scorecard (which we’ll continue to do every two years) are very important for us and it’s just the first step in engaging our community to find out what you think about what we do. This year, we’re determined to strengthen our focus on ‘community engagement’ which involves actively inviting two-way conversations with our community to gather feedback, ideas and thoughts. It’s about opening up the lines of communication and listening –really listening – to what you have to say, then using that information to guide our new 10-year Strategic Community Plan.

We’re committed to being a leader in this space and setting the benchmark for how local governments engage with the community they serve. We will be in touch very soon regarding this critical engagement campaign (happening later this year) to outline how you can get involved and have your say.

We encourage everyone to stay in touch with us – and our upcoming community engagement campaign where you can help shape the future of Vincent. Stay tuned to our Facebook, Twitterand e-Newsletter channels.