Cr Kathy Duff
July 18, 2018
While the number of customer complaints relating to roads appears to have fallen during the past year, it is unclear how many were resolved and how long it took to resolve them.
At Wednesday’s monthly South Burnett Regional Council meeting, Councillors were told customer service staff processed 1330 customer complaints about roads last financial year.
This was down 23 on the number they handled the year before.
They were also told road issues ranked lower than complaints about animals (1565 against 1449 in 2016-17), and only slightly ahead of complaints about water supply (1149 against 1118).
However, Deputy Mayor Kathy Duff said the raw numbers may not be showing the complete picture.
She asked Council staff if there was any information available about the number of resident complaints that were actually resolved.
“I think it would be good for us to know, especially in regards to the issues with roads, how far back some of those complaints go,” Cr Duff said.
Council officers told her the information wasn’t on hand, but her question would be put on notice.
Councillors also heard that last year complaints about mowing were well up on the previous year (711 against 521), with waste collection running in fifth place both years (594 against 555).
Overall, the number of customer complaints rose by about 7 per cent, from 4996 to 5349, or an average of 14 per day.
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Higher booking charges for Council halls may be starting to bite, with public hall bookings dropping by more than 8 per cent in the past 12 months.
Councillors were told that total bookings for council halls in Blackbutt, Nanango, Maidenwell, Kingaroy, Wondai, Proston and Murgon had fallen from 1212 in 2016-17 to 1121 last year.
The smaller halls in Maidenwell and Proston both recorded slight increases, and Murgon Town Hall bookings remained unchanged.
But all the larger halls recorded fewer bookings overall with Wondai Town Hall dropping the most, from 233 in 2016-17 to just 123 last year.
The Council introduced a new schedule of hall hiring fees in its 2016-17 Budget which led to not-for-profit community groups being charged 50 per cent of the commercial rate to hire Council-owned halls.
Until that time, community groups could apply to the Council to have their hall hire fees waived.
Last May, South Burnett Mayor Keith Campbell defended the move, saying the change was designed to ensure there was an element of “user pays” in hall hiring.
This was because the Council was still faced electricity, water use and general maintenance costs whether it charged fees or not.
“If ratepayers were happy with the level of rates we have to charge, then we probably wouldn’t be so sensitive about spending their money,” he said.
“But they aren’t, so we’re looking for savings wherever we can find them.”
The Mayor said the new policy restored a practice that had been followed by the former Kingaroy Shire Council, but he didn’t expect it would generate more than $20,000 to $30,000 a year in savings.
- Related article: Mayor Defends Hall Charges
