NSW Local Government Minister Don Page has told a gathering of regional organisations of councils (ROCs) in the Riverina that they and other ROCs across NSW will have an expanded and more important role to play in the future of local government.

Speaking at a meeting of REROC (Riverina Eastern ROC) and RAMROC (Riverina and Murray ROC), Mr Page said the reform required to ensure the sustainability of the local government sector would require more collaborative agreements and resource sharing between groups of councils, something many ROCs had some experience in already.

“It is clear to me that collaboration between councils will be a key in any strategy to strengthen local government moving forward – collaborative agreements increase councils’ buying power and enable them to come up with better services for more communities, at a reduced cost,” Mr Page said.

“I anticipate that regional organisations of councils will play a greater role in implementing such plans and actions across entire regions, because many ROCs have some form of cross-regional leadership role already.

“Regional organisations of councils are the primary model through which councils elect to identify, plan, manage and conduct their resource sharing arrangements and their collaborative programs.”

Mr Page said an expanded future role for ROCs was one outcome of the Destination 2036 conference in Dubbo in August – the strategic workshop to plan the future of the local government sector which was attended by representatives of all NSW councils – and the sector overwhelmingly supported strengthened partnerships between councils.

“Moving towards a strengthened, consistent role for regional organisations of councils raises a number of questions that we will need to think carefully about,” Mr Page said.

“Two such questions are, `how do we capture a new role for regional organisations of councils in legislation?’, and, `what should be the structure and framework of any expanded regional organisations of councils?’.”

Mr Page said future roles for regional organisations of councils could include:
- building member councils’ strategic planning capacity
- delivering council services on a regional basis
- delivering shared corporate services on a regional basis
- providing a regional voice for member councils and their communities
- procurement of shared assets and resources for productivity and efficiency gains
- regional training and the regional development of employee skills
- being a reference point for both State and Federal Government