The City of Bayswater has been recognised as an ABA100 Winner for Change Management in The Australian Business Awards 2019. The City proudly accepted the award for its SEED (Service Excellence Evaluation through a process of Discovery) project.
The SEED project saw the City undertake an internal review to improve resourcing and service delivery across the organisation. Rather than outsourcing the review, CEO Andrew Brien chose a more collaborative approach by engaging City officers within the organisation to form a SEED project team.
In just 6 months, the team had identified 57 service areas for review and facilitated an organisational restructure resulting in efficiency gains double their target of $423,908, reaching more than $800,000 in savings over the 2017/18 financial year.
City of Bayswater CEO Andrew Brien said the City was honoured to receive the award.
"The focus of SEED was to review all services provided by the City to look at opportunities for improvement as we went forward.
"What we found is, over time, little bits and pieces are added on to the services we deliver and no one really has the opportunity to sit back and say ‘well, why do we still do that?'
“The review was about getting rid of those silos and internal inefficiencies to get that right outcome for the community in the long term.
"Through a mix of collaboration, consultation and communication, the recommendations made in the service and structure reviews are owned by the staff.
"The contribution of staff was invaluable to the success of this review, and the SEED project team in particular deserve acknowledgement for their dedication and hard work.
"I also recognise the role Council played, as they fully supported this initiative and let me get on with the reviews.
"Overall, the project has been a huge success as it balanced service efficiency improvements with the ability of the organisation to accept change." Said Mr Brien.