HRCC moves to monthly meetings

Published on 17 July 2018

Horsham Rural City Council has voted to change from fortnightly meetings to monthly.

Council meetings will now be held on the fourth Monday of each month, with briefing meetings on the first and second Monday.

The change was adopted at Monday’s Ordinary Council Meeting.

Chief Executive Officer Sunil Bhalla said there were 31 similar sized Councils in Victoria and only three (including HRCC) had more than one meeting per month.    

“By reducing the frequency of meetings, Council can achieve significant cost savings and efficiencies,” Mr Bhalla said.

“In today’s environment, where it’s costing more and more for Council to service the community, it’s important that council continues to find cost savings and ways which it can work more efficiently,” he said.

“Fewer Council meetings with a more extensive agenda will mean significant savings and more efficient use of resources across the organisation.

“It will also improve the work/life balance for Councillors and staff,” he said.

Mr Bhalla said it was important that Council continued having two briefing meetings per month so that Councillors were fully informed on topics to be debated.

“Briefing sessions allow Councillors, staff and community stakeholders to hold preliminary discussions on the topics to be discussed in the next meeting’s agenda.

“They generally run for longer than the actual Council meetings but they are held in a less formal manner and help make the Ordinary Council Meetings run efficiently.

“We will now have double the agenda items at each meeting. So we will now have two briefing sessions before every ordinary meeting,” he said.

Meeting dates for the rest of 2018 will be 27 August, 24 September, 22 October, 26 November and 17 December (due to Christmas day).

There will also be a Statutory Meeting on Thursday 8 November at 7pm. 

Council meetings will continue to be held at the Civic Centre, Roberts Avenue, Horsham. The 5.30pm starting time will also remain unchanged.