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Local government has long had a reputation as going about its publicly visible work with a great deal of shovel leaning, and it's a reputation not entirely undeserved. Often a council job seems to entail an inordinate number of employees hanging around looking, leaning, talking, smoking.

This entrenched culture may be the reason many jobs traditionally tackled, if that's the right word, by council outdoor staff are now put out to commercial tender. And as you'd expect, there are savings, but I've noticed more than once that the estimates of the savings are exaggerated. I may have just discovered why.

The tender documents are drawn up by council's indoor staff, those indoors, and in the great bureaucratic tradition they are, if the tender document I've just read is a fair indication, fearsomely complex and demanding. This tender document is for a relatively small job, the removal of seven mature camphor laurel trees in Mayfield's Arnold St. The job has been put out beyond the council's preferred tenderers to general tender because of the outrage of some Newcastle councillors at the estimate of $80,000 to remove the trees. Such a price was, Cr Scott Sharpe said, offensive and gross sandbagging, and I think it is fair to say that Crs Graham Boyd, Mike King and Aaron Buman agreed with him.

Commercial quotes gathered by one of these councillors and a resident of Arnold St have ranged to $30,000, or $50,000 less than the estimate. BUT these quoters did not have to meet the extraordinary provisions of the tender document prepared by the council staff. Yes, extraordinary, although the council says bar a couple of site-specific conditions the requirements are the same as those required for the two-year appointment of preferred tree-lopping contractors.

In my column today I outline some of the onerous requirements, and here I'll tell you of one site-specific requirement. This is that the Arnold St trees be poisoned and that before any work can begin they must be pronounced dead by a council officer. Death could be weeks or months, and for the duration the contractor is to secure the site! As well, each tree is to be removed as it dies, and since they may die at different times they may have to be removed at different times.

Perhaps the councillors should put the preparation of tender documents out to commercial tender. And why can't bureaucracy and commonsense not co-exist?

Posted By: Jeff Corbett on 10/06/2009 5:31:25 PM | Comments (11)

comments

Date: Newest first | Oldest first

Jeff ~ there are two types of people in the world: those who need to work in a Council (or similar) environment, and those who wouldn't do it for quids. [I'm in the latter group]. Those that seem to thrive in the Council environment are utterly risk averse, and prefer to avoid taking responsibility for themselves. They insist on claiming 'over the odds' superannuation, and need flexi time, and unions, and bundy clocks, and believe that 'someone' (ratepayers!) owes them a living. They skipped one important lesson at Sunday school : the lesson of the fig tree. [Theologians, please forgive my paraphrasing and interpretation. I'm making a point]. One day Jesus was walking with the other memebers of the cult, and spotted a fig tree. He (apparently) said "does that fig tree have any figs?". They said "no - that particular tree does not have any figs". So he got a bit miffed and placed a curse on the tree, causing it to promptly wither and die. The point [I will get there....] is this : if you don't believe that you have to be productive, you can take all the time you want, and chew up all the resources you want, with little regard for the output (figs). Every Council takes the same approach with every procurement and outsourcing exercise they do, and they actually share templates to draft their ridiculous processes. A private contractor would go to Arnold Street, make the place safe, trim/lop the trees, remove the trunks, grind the stumps, poison the remainder if necessary, and be finished. Fast. I can assure you, the trees would be dead at the end of the process. The Council approach, of turning this into a 6 month 3 Stooges farce, simply illustrates my point ~ they are not required to be productive. Nobody is counting the figs. Well, until Lindy Hyam arrived. Don't forget to poison the roots, Lindy.......

Posted by Abundance, 11/06/2009 10:30:29 AM

One does not have to be a "brain surgeon" to realise that the drawing up of tender documents requires some fundamental inclusions, however I would suggest that those within councils, including NCC, engaged doing this work need to be reviewed and their competencies tested. It is reality that one document does not fit all and they should be drafted accordingly. The Arnold Street fiasco is just one example of where a sledge hammer has been used to crack an egg. The best way forward is to abolish the internal tendering section, engage an outside firm to draft up some relevant precedents and have employ someone within the council, with at least half a brain and some common sense to manage the tendering process. The elected council also needs to see and question tenders that appear beyond the pail.

Posted by Bazza, 11/06/2009 11:04:25 AM

Council will engage a consultant to judge whether the process is fair and cost effective. The consultant will charge an exorbitant fee for his useless information. And of course this will be worded so no fault can be attributed to him/her for the information given. Jeff i can peel oranges with a chain saw, and if Chaff and Oats will come down and help and i will take the $80,000 and guarantee all done in a week with new trees planted. ba ha ha :-)

Posted by Buell, 11/06/2009 12:39:55 PM

Question: Does Council always go to Tender? Maybe now Lindy has put down roots...but, before????

Posted by jake 69, 11/06/2009 1:44:03 PM

Jake 69 - it is not only the tender process that needs reviewing - it is also the smaller purchases that require scrutiny - food for working lunches, weekly flowers for office etc decorations, payment for daily newspapers etc - be they cash, cheque or credit card purchases. The buddy/crony mentality still exists and feeds well.

Posted by Bazza, 11/06/2009 5:39:05 PM

People on trains criticise railway track workers for standing around doing nothing when they go past on the train. What do they expect? Should the workers keep toiling away as the train runs over the top of them? Of course they have to stand back to let the train through! They have very limited time between trains and work their guts out before the next train comes. The railways gave a tender to private enterprise to renew sleepers up past Narrabri some years ago because they were cheaper than the railway could have done it for. But the private boys never had to abide by the many compliance and safety issues that the railway crews had to. They also left all the old sleepers at trackside and the railway crews had to go and remove them at railway expense. Private isn't always what it is cracked up to be - by the privates themselves.

Posted by ChooChoo, 11/06/2009 8:38:42 PM

Buell you are absolutely correct consultants are even more concerned at being sued so they take the conservative old tried and true method even if that method or technology does not work and has been proven not to work in the past, but if it is accepted practice then that will be what they will be advise even if it is a complete waste of money. The irony is that once a council or other government body has accepted such advice they will not want to admit they had accepted the wrong advice but will defend their actions to the very end. If you can understand that then your probably a bureaucrat.

Posted by progressive thinker, 11/06/2009 11:51:42 PM

Local Govt Act dictates when a council needs to go to tender, and there are some basic requirements within it. The comment above about NCC being totally risk averse is spot on. That is really the source of the problem. The staff are not looking to provide value, but to ensure nothing can ever come back on them.

Posted by fista, 12/06/2009 12:00:03 AM

If this council didn't waste millions from ratepayers, the economy of Newcastle would be booming.

Posted by James, 12/06/2009 5:47:58 AM

Fista ~ to clarify, for the time being I exclude the elected Councillors from my "utterly risk averse / responsibility avoiding" typology. It's the staff and the culture. Whilst the provisions of the Local Government Act do provide strict guidelines on when and *generally) how procurement etc happens, i thin kwe all agree that the devil is in the detail here. No legislation prescribes the sort of madness Jeff described.

Posted by Abundance, 12/06/2009 10:28:22 AM

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