The State Government is reforming the Local Government Act 1995.
These are the most significant reforms to the Local Government Act 1995 (the Act) in 25 years and aim to ensure local governments better serve residents and ratepayers.
Reforms have been crafted in consultation with the local government sector and are based on 6 themes:
Full Reform Proposals provides an overview of the reform themes and all reforms topics consulted on.
To ensure that key election related reforms were in place before the 2023 local government elections, the amendments to the Act were divided into 2 tranches. The first tranche, the Local Government Amendment Act 2023, focused on electoral reform.
The second tranche focuses on introducing the new Local Government Inspector and monitors for early intervention and resolution of issues, as well as a range of other important reforms to the local government sector.
Reforms to introduce communications agreements and clarify the roles of the council, mayors and presidents, councillors and CEOs.
Reforms for publishing CEO performance indicators and sharing CEOs between local governments.
Reforms to introduce the Local Government Inspector and monitors.
Reforms to introduce adjudicators to decide complaints and changes to support CEOs in handling unreasonable complaints.
Reforms to require livestreaming and recording council meetings and standardised meeting procedures.
Reforms for compliance exemptions and local government reporting through online registers.
Reforms related to financial management, including audit, risk and improvement committees, rates and revenue policy, and building upgrade finance.
Reforms related to conducting elections, backfilling extraordinary vacancies, and the constitution of local governments.
Reforms to council planning as part of integrated planning and reporting, including community engagement charters and surveys.
Reforms to enable council member superannuation, parental leave, and training and development.
Reforms to support the formation of regional subsidiaries and reduce red tape in their operation.
Reforms to streamline the making and reviewing of local laws, as well as approvals for residential crossovers and alfresco dining.
Past local government reforms.
Timeline of when reforms come into effect and a list of recent amendments.
Current and past consultation opportunities for the local government reforms.
Council members elected at the recent elections have 12 months to complete Council Member Essentials training.
This training consists of five units and can be completed through the WA Local Government Association, North Metropolitan TAFE, or South Metropolitan TAFE.
Recognising the unique and challenging role that council members have; the training provides them with the skills and knowledge to perform their role as leaders in their district.
As the requirement for training was introduced in June 2019, any council members re-elected in 2023 are exempt from the requirement to complete training within 12 months, providing they completed the Council Member Essentials training following their 2019 election.
Council members are also exempt if they have completed any of the following courses within the past five years:
Please arrange for the Council Member Essentials training to be made available to newly elected council members.
To reinforce the importance of mandatory training, the WA Government is progressing local government reforms to ensure that council members who do not complete this training within the 12-month period will not be able to receive council member allowances until they have complied with the requirements. This is intended to be part of the second tranche reforms to Local Government Act 1995.
If you have any questions, please contact the Local Government Hotline on 1300 762 511 or lghotline@dlgsc.wa.gov.au
The department holds regular webinars to explain reforms and update the local government sector on progress.
Register for LG Alerts to be notified of future webinars.
Previous local government webinars are available to view.
If you have questions about local government reform email us at actreview@dlgsc.wa.gov.au