How City of Mitcham transformed their annual budget planning and became inspired to think big

In November 2022, the south Adelaide suburb of Mitcham re-elected Mayor Heather Holmes-Ross to their progressive Council. Mayor Holmes-Ross and her CEO, Matthew Pears, decided to seize this second term to elevate the Council’s strategic thinking.

Mayor Holmes-Ross says, “We were primed and ready for the conversation. We had the right group of elected members and a mature organisation. I wanted us to be looking at things at a strategic level. It’s very difficult when elected members spend hours proposing solutions to small problems, and staff spend even more time delving into their ideas. I wanted more big-picture thinking.”

Pears adds, “The last elections were the first time a Mayor has been re-elected in the 13 years I've been CEO. It was an opportunity to go to the next level. The timing was right. We had a re-elected Mayor, a high-performing Council looking to be more strategic, and a high level of trust between the Chamber and the administration.”

A time for fresh thinking and taking a step up

“It’s difficult to find a facilitator who understands local government. Alicia was a perfect fit. She was really on top of our issues. She is someone from local government, who understands what is happening for us. She handled things beautifully at exactly the right pace and the right level. There were no jarring moments.” - Mayor Heather Holmes-Ross, City of Mitcham Council

Mayor Holmes-Ross explains why she and Pears chose Alicia to raise the Council’s strategic game. “We met Alicia at the Australian Local Government Association’s National Assembly in Canberra. Her take on what we’re doing as a sector was so refreshing. She cut through the bullshit. I love how down-to-earth she is. We thought, here's someone who really understands what we’re trying to achieve and how we could achieve our potential.”

Pears says, “We needed someone to come in and challenge us as a collective. It's hard to elevate practice with an internal conversation. You need an external expert to help.” Daniel Jellings, City of Mitcham’s Manager of Performance and Strategy, agrees, “I’ve tried different tools, techniques, and workshops to help elevate our strategic thinking. But we can't expect different results if we keep doing the same thing. I was hoping for a spark to inspire everyone to embrace a different way of thinking.”

Shared learning can be truly transformational

One key feature distinguishing the Strategic Public Leaders programme is that it brings elected members, senior Council executives, and managers together to learn as a team.

That collaborative approach is a requirement of the programme precisely because it is rare in local government. Shared development like this can transform the political-administrative working relationship. Jellings recalls, “Our elected body and senior leadership team had never spent time learning together in one room. I was really curious about what that approach could deliver.”

Pears recalls, “We had 30 people in the programme. Elected members had never been involved in a workshop with so many staff! It made them more aware of what managers deal with. The administration spends a lot of time contemplating elected members’ views, but this was the first time elected members got a feel for our experiences.”

Newly elected Councillor Aidan Greenshields is emphatic. “It changed the way we look at things. I regret we didn't do it earlier. Talking with staff about elected members' roles and our priorities as an organisation brought us closer. Staff inclusion in this programme is really important.”

Blowing consultant scepticism away

Councillors and Council staff are enormously busy – and can have a healthy mistrust of external consultants. Councillor Greenshields admits, “When you hear about a strategic leadership programme, the first thing you think is, well, is this going to be a load of waffle or is it actually going to be relevant and important?”

Mayor Holmes-Ross had no illusion that persuading everyone to attend would be easy. “I wasn’t sure how I would get all my elected members to the programme. A few Councillors pushed back. It was an achievement to get them all there.”

Daniel Jellings and his team coordinated the programme. He says, “Alicia took the time to record a short video saying how excited she was about the work we would do together. That made a huge difference. Alicia does a really good job of drawing people in.”

“I had a great team with the dogged tenacity to plan, book slots in people’s calendars, send reminders, and galvanise everyone to be there. If you want to get value out of your time with Alicia and for the programme to be more than just a flash in the pan, invest in that foundational work so people are primed, ready, and willing by the time they arrive.”

It may not be easy to get everyone there on the day, but the value of the Strategic Public Leaders programme makes it well worth the effort. Jellings says, “Alicia totally exceeded my expectations - and I had very high expectations! Towards the end of the workshop. the members said to Alicia, we thought you were another consultant coming to sell us snake oil, but you actually care. That was a beautiful moment of validation after all the work that went into getting everyone there, to hear people go, wow, this is useful; we’re going to use this.”

“Alicia’s take on what we’re doing as a sector was so refreshing. She cut through the bullshit. I love how down to earth she is. We thought, here's someone who really understands what we’re trying to achieve and how we could achieve our potential.” - Mayor Heather Holmes-Ross, City of Mitcham Council

Telling stories that stick about Councillors’ big why

The Strategic Public Leaders programme starts with discussing local government’s purpose, to set a big-picture frame from the outset. Councillors can feel dragged into short-term community issues like fixing potholes and dealing with barking dogs – but those are operational Council issues and the responsibility of Council staff. A Councillors’ role is to make wise, intergenerational decisions for their community. Strategic Public Leaders helps elected members and executive managers to lift their sights toward legacy.

CEO Matthew Pears says, “We wanted to challenge ourselves on what we’re here to do. The question for Councillors is, are they here to get re-elected or to make a difference in our community? We all wanted to ask ourselves what our legacy would be. If we look back in 10 years’ time, will it be clear what we stood for?”

“When the programme started, we were quite happy with how we were doing as a Council. We knew we were performing across a range of things. We were maybe even a bit self-satisfied. Alicia made us wonder: ‘Hang on, are we doing this right? Maybe there's another way of looking at our role?’ We started to question our performance at a strategic level.”

The interactive programme sees people sharing stories and experiences as they learn, building rich connections and understanding. Councillor Greenshields says, “Alicia told us about how she'd travelled to this area in Vietnam, which is famous for its beauty. But when she got there, it was just a bunch of rice paddies, and she thought: ‘What am I doing here?’ She saw a walk up a steep hill and climbed to the top. Suddenly, she looked out over the paddies, and the view was stunning. That’s a great metaphor for how strategy gets you out of the muck and into the clouds.”

Pears says, “The fundamental challenge we have as a Council is getting stuck in the rice paddies. Being able to keep asking ourselves if we’re in the rice paddy or up on the cliff has been powerful. The other concept we keep going back to is that if a decision is made and we're all slightly uncomfortable, that's probably a good thing. We don’t have to be absolutely happy with every element of a decision. We use those two concepts a lot. It's okay to be uncomfortable; let's keep thinking about the big picture here.”

The programme helps Councillors reframe their role and equips them with a shared tool kit of stories and language to help them stay in that high-value strategy zone. It’s an investment that pays off when it comes to creating a meaningful legacy, keeping Councillors focused on the big picture and out of the operational weeds.

Role clarity empowers City of Mitcham staff to own their turf

“I thought I'd be challenged, but I didn't realise we'd have so much fun. Alicia made us laugh. She also constantly lifted us to that strategic level and made us realise we were operating in the weeds. And it felt relevant to Mitcham. It wasn't a cookie cutter programme rolling out a model she'd presented a hundred times.” - Matthew Pears, CEO, City of Mitcham Council

A critical piece of the Council puzzle is decision-making responsibilities. Local government runs more smoothly when roles are clear. However, decision-making boundaries often become blurred or are never clarified in the first place.

Councillor Greenshields explains, “The programme helped us understand who should make certain decisions. Councillors make the big why decisions, supported by senior executives. The executive makes decisions on how we do things. And decisions around what we do are made by managers and their teams.”

“It’s hard for Council members to get out of minor community issues and provide overall strategic direction for the Council. It was both a relief and incredibly challenging to hear that. Now, Councillors and staff respect each other’s roles and understand where they need to be. We understand that Councillors aren't experts in the day-to-day running of Council, but Council managers are. This helped build mutual respect.”

Part of clarifying Council responsibilities is agreeing on what decisions will be taken by Council staff without involving elected members. The City of Mitcham has done an exceptional job establishing boundaries on this. Councillor Greenshields says, “We’ve agreed to delegate simple decisions that take up Council time. Staff are bringing less small stuff to us to keep us focused on the bigger, more important stuff.”

CEO Matthew Pears recalls, “Because we had that conversation with everyone in the room, we empowered the administration to make decisions they might not have made alone before. They know elected members will understand because they participated in a powerful debate about the right decisions for administration to make.”

Transforming their annual planning and budget process

City of Mitcham have implemented their new strategic tools in annual planning and budgeting. This shift started with the half-day strategic planning session facilitated by Alicia, where they applied the tools they’d learned to prioritise their strategic plan.

Mayor Holmes-Ross recalls, “Alicia made the process of going through our current strategic plan and weighting it really easy.” Councillor Greenshields agrees. “Alicia pulled out our priority themes in the strategic priority session. Her ability to make everybody in the room feel satisfied that we'd picked out exactly what was important to this Chamber was excellent. There wasn't bickering or debate because it felt like we'd got there as a team.”

Applying their new strategic skills has transformed the way Mitcham budgets. Pears explains, “We discuss our options in terms of strategic alignment to our priorities - instead of saying, “Here's our budget, what do we want to do with it?” Councillor Greenshields agrees, adding, “This year’s budget process is about understanding whether a project is aligned with our key strategic priorities, then running it through our new decision-making criteria. Is it the right thing, at the right time, for the right reason, with the right people?”

“The programme helped us understand who should make certain decisions. Councillors make the big why decisions, supported by senior executives. The executive makes decisions on how we do things. And decisions around what we do are made by managers and their teams.” - Councillor Aidan Greenshields, City of Mitcham Council

Framing their annual budgeting process around their strategic priorities and new right decisions model helps Mitcham’s elected members make wiser long-term decisions with resources. The new approach also makes Councillors responsible for assessing the strategic alignment of their budget requests, achieving consensus on that alignment, and negotiating prioritisation.

Councillor Greenshields says, “Having governance as a specific strategic priority has changed how we discuss funding projects, too. If a project hasn't been through a good governance process, do we really want to fund it?”

Once projects are shortlisted, the executive team assesses timing, resourcing and logistics, giving Councillors expert advice so they can make holistic budget decisions. The transparency and accountability of this process have enabled and elevated City of Mitcham Councillors to be the best strategic decision-makers they can be for their whole community.

Setting strategic boundaries saves time for elected members

It’s easy for elected members to become mired in responding to mundane community issues. Everyone wants a piece of them, and their inbox is always full of demands. Councillors often fall into the trap of believing their role is to fight that fire. The Strategic Public Leaders programme gives them tools to push back on unnecessary overwhelm.

Mayor Holmes-Ross understands. “The programme has changed the way I view my role. I get a lot of inquiries about operational matters. It’s amazing how many emails I get about street sweeping. I used to feel I should respond to them all! Now we’ve set up a system where residents are acknowledged and told their question has been forwarded to the right person in the administration.”

“A light bulb moment was realising that people outside Council don't know which part of Council does what. I could get annoyed when people write to me about street sweeping, or I could accept that people don't know who to go to, so they're just writing to me because I’m Mayor. It's okay to pass them on to someone else.”

Councillor Greenshields shares his epiphany. “Before the programme with Alicia, Council spent almost a whole meeting redesigning our rates notice. In hindsight, Council should not have been involved. We should have just told the staff what was important, instead of spending a whole night talking about design. Imagine how much more we will achieve if we keep our focus where it needs to be.”

Spotting when they’re getting stuck in the weeds has helped City of Mitcham save time in other ways. Pears recalls, The first Council meeting I attended ran for over 18 hours across three evenings. We used to have a meeting every two weeks. Now, we've gone to one meeting a month, and we’re finishing that early. If we're losing momentum, the Mayor will call it in the meeting, and the elected members understand what she's saying and why.”

Jellings concludes, “The programme has given elected members new confidence and language to challenge themselves. They're grappling with what it means to be an elected official. Is being a Councillor about being popular and winning votes, or is it about tackling the real issues facing your community?”

Setting strategic boundaries around the continual barrage of community operational issues isn’t always straightforward. And it can be tempting to dive into a short-term fix because it’s simpler than tackling long-term goals. But for Councillors, knowing they’re laying the foundations for their community’s future gives a sense of satisfaction fighting operational fires never can.

Activating investment in learning across the organisation

City of Mitcham is the poster child for extracting ROI from the Strategic Public Leaders programme. They have wrung every tiny piece of value out of what they learned.

Jellings explains, “The Council Executive were determined to get value from the programme and ensure it wasn't a flash in the pan. After the workshops, we all put in a big push to ensure the Council have new tools and language to use. Everyone did a debrief and we sent out a resource pack summarising our new frameworks. A second wave of activity brought our internal team on board, because we didn’t want staff to be confused when they heard the new language. Every month since we've had a touch point where we've used the language and reminded Councillors of the core concepts. Everyone keeps banging the drum.”

You also have to put your learning into action to see a return on your investment. Pears says, “We immediately applied the new frameworks to a whole range of things. For example, we use them to put agendas together, ensuring items align with our strategic goals.”

“We've stopped sending certain reports to elected members and we use our new language to explain why. Alicia taught us to consider the broader horizon of a decision. Some are one-week decisions, others hundred-year decisions. The executive team make short-term decisions because they don't involve discussion on strategic direction. When it comes to long-term decisions, elected members need time and space to consider. We’re giving Councillors more space for hundred-year decisions.”

Inspiring you to work toward something bigger

CEO Matthew Pears summarises the situation six months into implementing the Strategic Public Leaders programme, “We did this for the Mitcham community. Not for me, not for the administration, not for elected members, but for the community. Getting the whole Council focused on why we exist is important because it’s hard and uncomfortable, but ultimately what we're here for.”

Major Holmes-Ross reflects on City of Mitcham’s experience. “It’s difficult to find a facilitator who understands local government. Alicia was a perfect fit. She was really on top of our issues. She is someone from local government, who understands what is happening for us. She handled things beautifully at exactly the right pace and the right level. There were no jarring moments.”

Pears adds, “I thought I'd be challenged, but I didn't realise we'd have so much fun. Alicia made us laugh. She also constantly lifted us to that strategic level and made us realise we were operating in the weeds. And it felt relevant to Mitcham. It wasn't a cookie cutter programme rolling out a model she'd presented a hundred times.”

Councillor Greenshields says, “Alicia managed to pull together a group of strong-minded people from different walks of life who’ve different passions and desires for change and get us aligned. It feels like we’ve much more focus. The way she aligned us was important, too. She led us to decisions rather than pushing us. We feel like we got there ourselves.”

“We’re inspired to work towards something bigger. We're still grappling with what that looks like and how we do it, but we have 13 elected officials and 20 managers wanting to do more. We've got new skills and a desire to grow into this strategic space.” - Daniel Jellings, Manager of Performance and Strategy, City of Mitcham Council

Daniel Jellings summarises, “Alicia’s really good at providing tough love. Challenging assumptions, calling bullshit, and correcting ideas in a way that you still want to have a beer with her. Her superpower is to be tough on people in an inspiring way and build rapport.”

“We’re inspired to work towards something bigger. We're still grappling with what that looks like and how we do it, but we have 13 elected officials and 20 managers wanting to do more. We've got new skills and a desire to grow into this strategic space.”

Strategic Public Leaders has transformed relationships, decision quality, and strategic implementation for Australia and New Zealand Councils. Your local Council could be next. Find out more.