Integrated Planning and Reporting

Three major parties are involved in the development of an integrated plan: the local government administration, the Council and the community. Each party has a unique role and responsibilities for effective and sustainable integrated planning and reporting, with the Local Government (Administration) Regulations 1996 requiring each local government to adopt a Strategic Community Plan and a Corporate Business Plan.

A successful integrated planning and reporting process will deliver the following outcomes:

• a Strategic Community Plan that clearly links the community's aspirations with the Council's vision and long term strategy
• a Corporate Business Plan that integrates resourcing plans and specific council plans with the Strategic Community Plan, and
• a clearly stated vision for the future viability of the local government area.

The framework:

• recognises that planning for a local government is holistic in nature and driven by the community
• builds organisational and resource capability to meet community need
• optimises success by understanding the integration and interdependencies between the components, and
• emphasises performance monitoring so that local governments can adapt and respond to changes in community needs and the business environment.

The framework and guidelines provide a process to:

• ensure community input is explicitly and reliably generated
• provide the capacity for location-specific planning where appropriate
• update long term objectives with these inputs
• identify the resourcing required to deliver long-term objectives, and
• clearly convey long term financial implications and strategies.