As any good parent, I am keen to ensure my children receive a well-rounded education before they venture forth into the world. School only provides a minor part of this as there are a range of life skills that I believe need to be passed onto your children outside of traditional school education. One of these essential items is having a good basic grounding in the ‘classic’ movies of all time. I took the opportunity last weekend to continue that education by introducing my children to a couple of classic Monty Python movies, ‘The Holy Grail’ and ‘Life of Brian’, originally released in 1975 and 1979 respectively. These films are as funny today as they were when they were released and the children then started asking more questions about the members of Monty Python and what else they had done. This led to Fawlty Towers and we watched one classic scene from Series 2, called Waldorf Salad. Let me quote from one rant from Basil Fawlty: “All of you ponce in here expecting to be hand-waited on hand and foot! Well I’m trying to run a hotel here! Have you any idea of how much there is to do? Do you ever think of that? Of course not! You’re too busy sticking your noses into every corner, poking about for things to complain about, aren’t you? … A lot of layabouts with nothing better to do than to cause trouble! Well I’ve had 15 years of pandering to the likes of you lot, and I’ve just about had it. In fact, I’ve had enough! I’ve had it! Come on, pack your bags and get out!”

Anyone familiar with the series will know that Basil should never have been in the hospitality game. Hospitality requires a credo of service above self and the humour in this scene is based on the fact that he is complaining about clients expecting to be waited on. The business of ‘running a hotel’ seems of more importance than looking after the guests.

Unfortunately I sometimes see a similar attitude in local governments across the state. In some of the poorer performing Councils, there seems to be an attitude that residents are an interruption to the daily lives of the Councillors and employees. I know in Dubbo we have the attitude that residents of our City are similar to clients of a business. Without our residents, there is no need for a Council and the very existence of our residents provides employment for our staff.

Councillors from other towns and cities have told me that my comparison between business and Council is illogical due to the fact that a business has competitors and clients can easily choose a different business but Councils have a monopoly. You can’t live in a certain location and decide to pay your rates to a different Council. By law you must pay your rates to your local Council therefore a focus on customer service is irrelevant. On the contrary, there are several reasons why progressive Councils focus on delivering exceptional customer service. For a start, Councils don’t really have a monopoly. When customer service levels are extremely poor, people will go to extraordinary lengths to deal with another organisation. I know of examples where people have been annoyed by a car dealer in their town and have travelled hundreds of kilometres (and paid more) to deal with another dealer. I have seen people drive instead of fly because they were so disappointed with a certain airline that had a monopoly on a route. It is not beyond the realms of possibility for a person to leave where they live due to a complete lack of confidence in their local Council. I grant that it would probably be a contributing factor rather than a sole factor but Councils have competitors – called other towns and cities. I believe it is therefore necessary for a ‘Customer is King’ culture to be pervasive throughout all Councils. I would never say that Dubbo is perfect but I certainly believe our team has a welcoming attitude to feedback and we all make a genuine attempt to deliver exceptional customer service.

There are a few basics that Councils need to get right to be able to claim they are delivering service to their residents. Councils need to be civil, respectful and helpful and answers to queries need to be fast and accurate. This doesn’t mean the answer will always be the answer that a resident wants – but a fast “no” is better than a drawn out “maybe”. I recently had a conversation with a resident who wanted a particular dirt road sealed and the comment was made that Council didn’t care about the residents living on this road. On the contrary, the case had been presented and Council had considered the case and determined not to put bitumen on this road. Council has a strategic prioritisation of road sealing based on traffic demands and the cost of sealing a road ranges from $400,000 to $1M+ per kilometre (depending on the initial surface and final road required). When a request is made of Council for a dirt road to be sealed, it needs to be considered against a range of other priorities and, if a decision is made to seal a certain road, it means that road works elsewhere will not be performed. Unfortunately there is not a bottomless pit of money but a finite budget to manage each year.

Councillors and Council employees typically live, work and play in their Local Government Area. Local Government is the level closest to the people and the one that is most in touch with the community. As more Councils realise that residents need to be treated like high-value clients, the strength of local governments across the state will be improved even further. And hopefully there are not too many Basil Fawlty like characters in local government!

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