I often joke around (although quite seriously) that local government is a lot like the British comedy, “Yes Minister”. However, I’m starting to understand it’s perhaps closer to the darker British drama, “House of Cards”.

Campbelltown is currently in the process of hiring a general manager. Well, apparently. Because until tonight, all I had heard about most of the process was rumour and newspaper reports. Yet I’m one of the councillors.

For those who don’t know, the general manager is the person who runs council. To understand how important the role of general manager is, think of a prime minister that also runs every ministry. Or probably more correctly, a CEO of a company. The general manager runs the day-to-day operations of the organisation, managing all staff, and it’s those staff who propose the budget to councillors, which is most often passed without amendment.

I would argue that council’s decision on the general manager is the most important decision a council makes. Whilst councillors are playing politics, the general manager controls close to everything.

Back a few months ago, during a briefing session (these are closed to the public) four options were presented to councillors for recruitment agencies to hire to recruit a new general manager. These agencies advertise, vet the candidates, etc. Of these four options, one was recommended to council. There was some disquiet about this approach, one councillor pointed out that they felt they weren’t really being given a choice, and presenting the pros and cons of the other three agencies was a bit of a waste of time when the decision had already been made.

Sensing this disagreement, I proposed to the Acting General Manager (as the current General Manger is currently ill) to put up a report to council detailing the recruitment agency to be selected, and the selection committee, to an open council vote, to get the issue sorted. When there’s any disagreement (and even when there isn’t) it’s good practice to put the issue to the vote in council, and debate and resolve it either way. Everyone can then say they’ve had their say, and for those on the losing side, that’s democracy.

At this point, the Mayor jumped in and said something to the effect of “if you’ve got a problem with this process, come and talk to me”.

And that was the end of it.

Fast forward to last week. At this point, I have heard nothing else about the process from council. However, through media reports I’ve learnt that the positions have been advertised, a selection panel constituted (though I did not know who was on it exactly) and interviews were to be conducted later this month. At the very least, it’s terrible governance that not only the public, but also councillors, are hearing about the process of hiring a new general manager through fragmented information in the media.

So I have attempted to bring this to a head. Understanding at this point we’re well into the process, the least we could do is appoint a selection panel properly. So before the notice of motion deadline I put forward a motion proposing one councillor from each party/independent grouping on council (a total of seven). I was of course happy for each group to choose a member (or decline to take part) but a motion to be moved should be valid in itself, so I had to name names, of which I simply placed by default the member of each group on council who had served the longest term, which I was happy to see amended from the floor. However, on reflection over the weekend, I started to think the lack of transparency in this process is so severe that it should be opened up to all councillors. So on Tuesday night I simply moved that the selection panel consist of all councillors.

I had a set of questions I wished to ask. So I started:

“Has a recruitment agency been hired?” “Did council resolve to hire this recruitment agency?”

These you would think aren’t particularly probing. The simple answers are “yes” and “no” respectively, and you would expect to be public knowledge.

But just after these two questions, council resolved to move into confidential, by a 12-3 vote.

At this point, with the media and public forced out of the chamber, I didn’t waste my breath asking the rest of the questions in a confidential session, at that point there’s no accountability against whoever is answering them anyway. The whole point was to open the process up, and council has overwhelmingly decided to hide it from public criticism. Note that my questions (which were not heard) were not particularly probing, they were just questions like:

“What recruitment agency was selected?”. “Who made the decision?”. “Who’s on the selection panel?”. “Who decided who is on the selection panel?” etc.

These are questions that in a normal process would be specified in a public council report and resolution before the beginning of the hiring process. Of course the confidentiality of candidates needs to be respected, but basic process questions such as what recruitment agency is being paid and who is on the selection panel don’t need to be kept secret. Well, so you would think, but twelve councillors disagree. During that confidential session, my motion was amended to simply authorise the already selected panel, an admission that this step should have been taken place long ago, but with myself and the one other councillor supporting me being left off the panel.

So what’s going on? That’s a question I can’t answer, because I’ve had nothing to do with the process, and will continue to be left out. However, a massive overreaction to even basic questions of process being in the public sphere suggests to me something is not right. I suspect the final vote to determine the general manager will also be held in a confidential session, and Campbelltown will emerge with a new general manager from a process that has been entirely hidden from the public and indeed from a number of councillors themselves.

With this attitude towards public accountability in the organisation, it is my strong feeling that we need a new general manager that will dig through the organisation and shake things up. But I am increasingly convinced that the people of Campbelltown will get more of the same, and that is not encouraging.