Hilltops Council Attacks Independent Media For Seeking Answers Over $1.5 Million Information Technology Contract

Both the Boorowa News and the Harden Express printed a media release supplied by Hilltops Council last week which detailed…. “Hilltops Council has given the green light to a new and improved information system which promises to enhance customer service and streamline efficiencies across the entire Council region.” Both of these newspapers are owned by Fairfax and not regarded as independent media.

The headline stated, “All systems go on enhancing Council’s information flow.”

The Twin Town Times, which is regarded as independent media, uncovered that this was far from the case. After such a definitive headline as, “All systems go on enhancing Council’s information flow.” It would be expected that Council had actually finalised the contract and were, “All Systems Go.” When pushed on the subject by the Times and asked how much it would cost to implement the new system for Hilltops Council Rate Payers, Council responded with, “Council is currently in the process of finalising the contract with the successful tenderer, the details of which will be made public in due course.”

The point to the story is that there is far more going on in the background in regards to Hilltops Council and the State Government’s implementation of the forced mergers, which the people of the Hilltops area are oblivious to.

Why should anyone care?

For most of our readers it affects their bank balances as Rate Payers and residents, expecting value for money from their Council. Councils need to be held accountable for their decisions.

For some media outlets its easier just to be fed information rather than investigate it. Not us.

Hilltops Council only tells the Times and the residents of the Shire what they think we should know and no more. This way they can attempt to control the flow of information and in a way, control the masses.

The Times strives to uncover any information which assists our readers in understanding what is occurring in their local government area. We have done this since day one. The Hilltops Council released 2 media releases today which may be seen by some of our readers as an attack on the Times as well as very well respected local radio broadcasters within the area, who are actually investigating information, rather than taking it at face value and printing it.

We would rather be known as a newspaper which asks the hard questions than become the middle man for Hilltops Council to spread their own sanitised version of events to the Rate Payers.

Greens MP David Shoebridge sent the Times information pertaining to what is actually going on in the current local government scene regarding the implementation of IT systems. He was able to uncover the cost for Hilltops to install a new IT system. That cost is $1.5 million, (blown out by $100,000 from previous estimates made by Hilltops Council in 2016) and something Hilltops Council didn’t mention in their release.  Nor did they answer the issue of cost when prompted.

If you add the $5 million dollars which the merger has already been costed at, to the $1.5 million for the proposed IT system, you quickly get $6.5 million in forced amalgamation costs.

Is that money well spent in forcing 3 communities and Shires together when Hilltops Council stated in March that each former Shire “achieved operating surpluses” ?

One must ask, is a merger of the 3 Shires into 1 even necessary?

Questions which the public should pose to Administrator Wendy Tuckerman and Interim General Manager Anthony McMahon. They can be contacted on the following emails

wendy.tuckerman@hilltops.nsw.gov.au

or anthony.mcmahon@hilltops.nsw.gov.au

or by calling the Young Town Hall on 63 801 200 during business hours.

For the record, Mr McMahon is an unelected Interim General Manager whose role on the Council never underwent a normal selection process. He was chosen from a field of one, him. He was appointed by the State Government to oversee the forced merger of the 3 Shires. He currently receives $272,900 per annum and will have received a total of $409,350 for the 18 months he will spend in the role. This equates to $5,248 per week.  The new Council will decide on his future from September onward.

Administrator Tuckerman is an unelected Administrator remunerated $180,000 a year by the state Government for her role on Hilltops Council and will have received $270,000 for the 18 months she will spend in her role. This equates to $3,461 per week.

Mr Shoebridge also spoke to The Sydney Morning Herald (A much larger Fairfax Paper than the Boorowa News and Harden Express)  regarding the appointment of TechnologyOne. He uncovered that after the forced mergers in 2016, there were several Councils across Sydney who decided to contract directly with TechnologyOne, which is a Brisbane based IT supplier.

The same supplier which Hilltops Council may or may not have entered into an agreement with. It seems they are unsure based on their recent correspondence.

Shoebridge pursued the matter through the NSW Administrative Tribunal, and found that the Inner West Council in Sydney  will be spending $9.4 million dollars over 5 years with the firm. It has also been revealed that Brisbane Council may be looking at a cost blow-out of up to $60 million dollars with TechnologyOne.

What measures if any, are in place to prevent this happening to Hilltops Rate Payers?

Mr Shoebridge told the Sydney Morning Herald “It beggared belief that an unelected Administrator would commit to a $9.4 million dollar contract without testing the market.”

Government News, a well-respected news website reported “A council spokesperson said the decision not to go to open tender complied with Section 55(3)(i) of the Local Government Act 1993, which states “… because of extenuating circumstances, remoteness of locality or the unavailability of competitive or reliable tenderers, a council decides by resolution (which states the reasons for the decision) that a satisfactory result would not be achieved by inviting tenders”.

Inner Western Sydney is hardly as remote as Harden, Boorowa and Young.

How then has, Hilltops Council, managed to attract, “ten submissions” for the IT contract, when the Inner West Council bypassed the process and chose their supplier from a field of one?

Hilltops Council cried foul yesterday with a media release titled “Council Corrects Slanderous Fake News.” Council said “It’s important for rate payers to know that appropriate processes and regulations were followed in relation to the LGIS, and any media outlet that makes wild accusations about misconduct should first check with Council to get their facts straight; their audience deserves to know the truth,”

They provided no evidence to back up the statements they made in the release.

Statements such as those above are designed to damage the reputation of the Times and that of the radio broadcasters and will be dealt with next week. The Council decided to go a step further later this afternoon by releasing another statement and  by ‘narrowing down’ the field they were or weren’t attacking with the statement.

The statement was titled ‘Recognising quality journalism’ and contained the following information…. “Hilltops Council wishes to clarify an earlier statement regarding the reporting of misinformation by some local print and broadcast media outlets relating to Council’s Local Government Information System (LGIS). The statement was not referring to any of the newspapers published locally by Fairfax Media, nor was it referring to The Hilltops Phoenix,” General Manager Anthony McMahon said.

To repudiate the Council’s claims regarding the Council’s supposed willingness to answer media questions posed to them, the Twin Town Times only has to refer to an email sent a few weeks ago to Hilltops Council on May 16 this year.

Simple questions which failed to be answered by Council and are still waiting to be answered, revolve around the timeframe of May 12 2016, to the present day: Question 1) Could Council please provide the figures for the entire Hilltops workforce. Question 2) The number of staff who have finished working at the organisation. Question 3) Number of trainees taken on and in what areas. Question 4) Are there any consultants engaged by Hilltops and what cost this has incurred. 4A) What is the total cost of consultants since May 12 2016.

All of these questions are very important to the people who want to know the answers. Residents and Rate Payers. The real people in charge of Hilltops Council. We are still waiting for a proper response from Council.

Council sent the following response at the time “I have provided some information below that is readily accessible and am sourcing info on some of the other queries. In relation to the question on consultants, the answer to the first part is yes we definitely have a number of consultants currently engaged for a range of different purposes, some of them merger related and some of them non-merger related. In relation to the question on cost since merger. I would need to know some more specifics on what level of information and detail you are after to decide if we can provide that information. For accounting purposes we are required to report at the level of what we spend on materials and contracts which includes consultants. To break down to the level of detail of consultants would be a time consuming exercise. Depending on exactly what you are after a GIPA request may need to be lodged and an appropriate fee paid for the administrative time taken to  source the information but if you give me more specifics I can let you know.”

The question was simple and I didn’t stutter…..  4) Are there any consultants engaged by Hilltops and what cost this has incurred. 4A) What is the total cost of consultants since May 12 2016.

If the Council can’t account for the number of consultants or the cost since they were merged, how can they expect the public to have faith in their operations?

Well, they simply can’t expect any faith. In fact incompetence is starting to creep in to conversations. Locals previously referred to Hilltops Council as Helltops. That term has again changed to Hillflops.

When media outlets are advised by Hilltops Council that a Government Information Public Access (GIPA) needs to be lodged, for even the simplest of information, this is when the media lose faith that the proper dissemination of information is occurring. A GIPA is designed to slow the flow of information to the parties interested in it and comes at a cost of $30. Hilltops Council has an  excellent track record of disseminating news slowly, disseminating only what they think the public should know and based on the most recent media release they don’t seem to be able to accept criticism  from media outlets when they fail to deliver on the simplest of questions or properly explain the processes used to determine where $1.5 million will be spent until they are prompted, pushed or prodded by independent media.

Do the residents and rate Payers of Hilltops deserve better from Hilltops Council?

It seems the September 9 elections can’t come soon enough for the Rate Payers and residents of the former 3 Shires: Harden Shire, Boorowa Shire and Young Shire. The community will have the chance to democratically elect Councillors again after 15 months of a total loss of democracy, where many former Councillors or members of the community have been taken on to advise the Administrator, yet retained no decision making power whatsoever. The process appears to have been a sham consultation. Brian Ingram from Young, Abb McAlister from Gundagai and Trina Thompson from Tumut are but a few, who have come out over recent months and criticised the process resulting in their sacking by unelected Administrators

The staff of Hilltops Council are not to blame for the poor performances of Hilltops Council. Many have been plucked from their usual roles and expected to go above and beyond what is normally expected of employees in bringing the 3 former Shires together. Many are doing the work of 2 people after those who have left the organisation either out of redundancy, or retirement have not been replaced.

This editorial is not aimed at them. It is aimed at the State Government and those who so readily and willingly allowed this mess to happen. Shit flows down hill and it flows from the top.

After September 9, the new Council will have the very important task of tracking all of the decisions made by Hilltops Council since May 12 2016 and will decide which resolutions need rescinding and which resolutions will be kept in the best interests of their community and not the best interests of the Liberal and National party coalition.

The new Council will be working for the people and their purpose should be administering a local Government which has value for rate payers at the forefront of any decision making process.

For those of us who think we should get on with it and move on and don’t understand  what a forced merger will mean, they need only look at the ‘Save Gundagai Shire’ Facebook page, or read the Gundagai Independent (Print Version) for independent Journalism at its best. They provide an insight into the people of a proud, small town, who will not take no for an answer and wish to be de-merged from the forced merger with Cootamundra. They know a dud deal when they see one and won’t give up. Although they will run candidates on the new Council they will continue to fight to end the forced merger. Don’t worry Coota residents aren’t too happy either and seem to have come to the conclusion they want out aswell.

For those of us who think it will all go swimmingly in the elections, I have previously written about the indisputable facts regarding the number of adults in the Hilltops Shire who can vote on September 9. Former Boorowa Shire 1,500. Former Harden Shire 2,500. Former Young Shire 7,500. There are 11 places for Councillors. How may do you think will be elected from your former Shire. Some will go from 9 to 1 or 2 at best.

There was an option to have a ward system which would give fair representation to all residents of the new Shire. The decision was made not to pursue this measure.

That’s progress is it?

Hilltops Council has been very quick to attack the Times. Come September the residents and Rate Payers will have the chance to vote in Councillors who won’t put up with the sort of rubbish which Hilltops Council attempts to get away with. They will have the chance to choose who they will put in place and who will have the determination to hold the bureaucrats to account or send them packing, back down the hill and out of the organisation.

 

The Editor of The Twin Town Times is Matthew Stadtmiller. 

For reasons of transparency, the Twin Town Times would like to state the following.

Mr Stadtmiller is a former Harden Shire Councillor and Deputy Mayor. He will be running for a position on Hilltops Council in the September 9 elections.