Hilltop Council’s office hours for Harden and Boorowa will be changing as of Monday 12 September, as part of what they call “Hilltops Council’s driver for operational sustainability.”

The opening hours of the Customer Service desks have been amended, with the Harden office having a one hour and 15-minute closure in the middle of the day from 12pm to 1:15pm. The Harden office located on 3 East Street is open between 8:30am and 5pm Monday to Friday but will have an extended lunchtime closure going in just a matter of weeks.

The Boorowa office will also have a one hour and 15-minute closure, however, later in the day between 1pm and 2:15pm.

The extended closure has been questioned by some in the community, including labelling it as “very short sighted” as some residents can only visit Council offices during their lunch breaks and prefer in-person service to online.

Others stated that operational sustainability is not achieved by “diminishing services in smaller services.”

“We appropriately then allow half-an-hour for them to do those duties, so that is why the middle of the day break is required.

“What we had before was we had some job shares and overlaps of time, however, as part of the review of the organisational structure, that one person could do the duties across the day, rather than doubling up with people because there are minimum hours that are required for staff to be part of a system model that job share.

“The most efficient way to do that, because we are all about trying to save money, was to streamline everything this way. Harden have already been working within that model for some months now and I haven’t personally received any complaints about that. Once people are aware of the opening hours they just don’t go during that time.”

Hilltops Council maintains that each Council building is well staffed and meets the requirements of the public.

“There is the full continuum of people across the offices, certainly in relation to Section 218 of the Local Government Act is that it’s a requirement that the numbers of staff are maintained from the amalgamation in May 2016. So we adhere to all of those numbers across Boorowa, Harden and Young,” O’Reilly continued.

The news comes a week after the Cootamundra-Gundagai Regional Council decided to demerge, changing the dynamic of another nearby Council.

Tim Warren