Middleharbour and Northern Beaches District Council of P&C Associations

MiddleHarbour and Northern Beaches District Council of P&C Associations

P&C Federation Reforms

Two groups of motions have been submitted to the 2008 Annual Conference.

The first group below is aimed at changing the Constitution to reform the way that Office Bearers are elected. The Constitution may only be changed every three years in “Constitutional Years” – and 2008 is such a year.

The second group was submitted to Annual Conference in 2007 and was aimed at changing By-Laws, which may be changed every year. The motions were deferred by vote of the 2007 Conference given that a study by Consultant Charles Dalgleish covering the performance of the administration and of the Council was about to begin. Since then, the Dalgeish Report has been presented to Council, and many of the recommendations that were able to be implemented by Council have been acted upon.

Northern Beaches District Councils motions from 2007 are all still relevant and will allow the remaining Dalgleish recommendations to be implemented.The motions, cover a reduction in size of Council and the Executive; strengthening Federation’s strategic focus and reformingits unwieldy policy; and strengthening the role of the Office.

Constitutional Motionsto Annual Conference 2008 – Election of Office Bearers

That Clause 6 (c) of the Constitution of P&C Federation be replaced by the following:

“(c) The Office Bearers shall be elected by a postal ballot of all financial affiliated associations. Each affiliated association shall be entitled to one vote”.

The present Constitution reads:

“(c) The Office Bearers shall be elected by and from Annual Conference”.

The current arrangement means that Office-Bearer positions are elected by the very small group of people physically present at Annual Conference when the ballot is undertaken. The number of delegates voting at Annual Conference has, in recent years, been less than 3% of the number of delegates allowed under the rules. Many organizations and associations, such as Unions, now use Postal Ballots to enfranchise their broader membership.

That Clause 6 (d) be replaced by the following:

(d) A person, to be eligible for election as an Office Bearer, shall have previously served as a Councillor. No person shall serve more than two

terms consecutively in the same office.

The present Constitution reads:

(d) A delegate, to be eligible for election as an Office Bearers, shall have previously served as a Councillor and no-one shall serve more than two

terms consecutively in the same office.

The slight change in wording reflects the need to change the word “delegate”(at the Annual Conference) if the change to Clause 6 (c) is successful.

Motions for the 2008 Annual Conference

Originally submitted in 2007 and deferred pending the Dalgleish Report

Preamble

The objective of the following motions is to:

• strengthen the performance of Council and the Federation;
• provide better support to the volunteer Officers and Councillors of Federation; and
• encourage Regional Councils to play a greater role in furthering the objectives of Federation.

Federation’s Council has been operating more-or-less in its current mode for decades. To be successful on a continuing basis, organizations must change to meet the changing challenges they face, and to make the best use of the opportunities that arise.

In recent years there have been many changes in Australian society such as:

• People have become more affluent and materially better off. As a result, people have higher expectations in their own lives, and of service providers, be it the telephone company, the supermarket or the education system. Public education has come under challenge because more people are in a financial position to make more choices, including private education for their children; and both major political parties have supported progressive increases in subsidies to private schools.
• People have less time to involve themselves in volunteer activities, due to increased work pressures on individuals; a greater incidence of one parent families or of both parents working; and a much greater choice of leisure time activities.
• Greater affluence has led to less reliance on traditional support organizations such as trade unions and cooperatives, and in declining membership in many volunteer organisations.
• Technology has had a huge impact on our lives. For baby boomers, most workplaces have changed considerably over their working lives. The younger generation has access to a broader range of knowledge, they have a different approach to the workplace, and they use technology to learn different things in different ways.

The current operation of Federation is overdue for review. The motions set out below for debate at Annual Conference are designed to spark debate and to lead to reform which will allow the Federation to better meet the expectations of its affiliates, parents and stakeholders; the challenges of the future; and also to enable Federation to take full advantage of opportunities as they arise.

Size and operations of Council

Federation’s Council allows for a total of 98 Councillors plus eight office bearers, a total of 106 people. Council meets a minimum of four times per year for a full weekend. In addition, most Councillors attend Annual Conference, which meets for three days in July each year. The eighteen members of the Executive also attend a number of Saturday meetings every year between Council Meetings.

Council has traditionally dealt with policy matters, educational issues and internal machinery and commercial issues.

In recent years, many Councillors have observed, to varying degrees, the following issues which the reforms below are aimed at addressing:

• Wasted TimeToo little time is being spent on substantial policy or educational issues, with time being wasted on micro-managing events such as the Annual Conference, on meeting procedural matters, or on administrative matters that should be dealt with by the office or by the Office Bearers.

• Size of CouncilCouncil is far too large, with individuals being frustrated or bored by the fact that only one person can talk at once, and the group is too large for any meaningful participation for many Councillors. A smaller Council will still give a broad spectrum of views, but is likely to be more manageable, productive and focussed.

• Attracting New CouncillorsExperience has shown that new Councillors are hard to attract and keep. The result is that Council has a very high percentage of very-long serving Citizen members. There is nothing wrong with Citizen members, as many have a range of valuable talents and the time to attend meetings, etc. But the balance is wrong – for Council to remain vibrant, relevant and effective, it must be attracting new Councillors on an ongoing basis. Some Councillors who have left after just one or two terms have complained of a lack of focus on real issues, and a boring and unnecessarily time consuming format. Council is also unattractive to parents with children at school because giving up full weekends away from their children is quite a sacrifice, and they are not interested inwasting time at unfocussed and unproductive Council meetings.The bar for participation is just too high.

A measure of the attractiveness of the current Council format is that, according to the 2006-07 Handbook, there are many vacant positions, with only 67 ordinary Councillor positions filled out of a total of 98. In the Metropolitan regions, there are only 23 Councillors out of a total of 40 positions. At the last Council meeting before this document was written (February, 2007) there was only 45 ordinary Councillors present on one of the days, and 50 on the other.

• Succession Planning.The number of Councillors with the time and the skills to take on leadership roles in Federation is seen by some to be diminishing to the point where the current mode of operation will be unsustainable in any case. Less time spent on unproductive activities is a pre-requisite to attracting the continuing fresh inflow of talent needed to sustain the organization at the high level of effectiveness expected from a peak body such as ours.

• Councillor ElectionsCouncil, although elected through a democratic process, has become unrepresentative. Elections are carried out at Annual Conference by those present. At the 2006 Annual Conference, only about 3% of the possible 6,000 plus delegates were in attendance. There was little or no competition for Councillor positions. Councillors are not elected by the full conference – only by delegates from their own Region. The number of delegates from some Regions was particularly low. If Councillors were elected at Regional Council meetings, it would help generate more interest in the Federation, as well as encouraging a broader pool of people to participate.

• Office-BearersLikewise, Office-Bearer positions were also elected by the very small group of people (3%) physically present when the ballot was undertaken. Many organisations, such as Unions, now use Postal Ballots to enfranchise their broader membership. The election of Office Bearers is covered by Clause 6(c) of the Constitution, and may not be dealt with until the next “Constitution Year”, which is 2008.(Clause 13 (c) of the Constitution as printed in the 2006-07 Handbook).

• TechnologyCouncil is technology shy, perhaps because of the lack of younger parents who are more comfortable with technology. As a result, Federation does not take proper advantage of web, email and mobile telephone technology to energise affiliates and parents on issues, or on lobbying decision makers such as MP’s. This is at a time when students, the Department of Education and Training, the Board of Studies, Teachers Federation and politicians are using technology extensively to communicate their issues – the P&C Federation has been left a long way behind.

• Policy Federation’s policy is well thought through and has stood the test of time. It is a snapshot of all the issues that Federation has found to be important over the years, and as such is a valuable document. However, it is, by its very nature, not dynamic – and it is seldom, if ever, comprehensively updated. Adherence to the letter of policies which have sometimes not been re-visited for years has created a defensive mindset in Federation, with the result that our leaders are constrained from active participation in the new wave of reforms to education that are being driven by community expectations; new approaches to teaching and leadership; different approaches to learning and to adults by the students; and changing technology. Rewriting our policy would be a Herculean task, and we’d still end up with the same type of static document that we have now, albeit updated.

• Strategic Planning Council shouldspend most of its time on strategic planning andexamining the broader issues. The By-Laws should state that Council be responsible for producing a Strategic Plan, keeping it current, and using it to determine issues to be actioned.

• Representation Representation is one of the valuable functions of the Federation. With a smaller Council, representation duties should be extended to members of Regional Councils where appropriate – thus strengthening the links between Council and the Regions.Committees of Council do have the power to co-opt (Clause 7 of the Constitution), and Regional Council representatives could be utilised this way. However, it would be clearer if Clause 7 of the Constitution were changed, and this will have to wait until 2008 to be addressed.

• Chief employed officer of the Federation. Many volunteer and industry representational bodies now employ a Chief Executive Officer. The CEO’s role involves management of the staff, the commercial activities, servicing volunteer office holders and affiliates, provision of policy advice to the volunteer Council, managing the strategic plan determined by Council, media statements and representing the organisation. This approach recognises the fact that volunteers have increasingly less time to carry out duties which are becoming generally more demanding. It is often the only way that a volunteer organisationcan fulfil its role and meet the expectations of its customers and stakeholders in a professional manner. The Federation is operating in an industry that is intellectually demanding and politically complex – and in an environment of change and opportunity. We owe it to our affiliates and our children to be as effective as possible.

The CEO would remain fully accountable to the elected President, as is the case now.

Motions

To make the management of Federation less unwieldy, more productive, more focused, and more representative, the Motions1-4 below will:

• Reduce the size of Council to a more manageable 40 plus eight Office Bearers.
• Allow for the Councillors to be elected from their own Region meetings.

These two reforms will encourage more people at Regional level to put their hand up at state level, and will make Council easier to manage and more productive. They will also give the Regional Council more buy-in to Council and its activities, and more relevance to the operation of Federation.

The reduction in the size of Council will save thousands of dollars every year in the cost of running Council – money which can be used to improve Federation’s communications and ability to argue issues. It will also take some of the load off the President and the paid staff if the size of Council is smaller.

Motion 1.

That By-Law 1(d) be replaced by the following:

“Each Region shall be entitled to be represented by four Councillors.”

The current By-Law 1(d)reads “Each region and the one sub-region shall be entitled to be represented by a number of councillors on the basis of two councillors for each 50 government schools, or part thereof, and which are eligible to affiliate”.

Motion 2.

That By-Law 4(a) be replaced by the following:

“(a) Subject to this By-Law, the Office Bearers and Councillors shall serve from the close of the Annual

Conference at which they are elected or take office to the close of the Annual Conference in the second year following”.

The words “or take office” have been added because the following Motion has the effect that Councillors will not be elected at Annual Conference.

The current By-Law 4 (a) reads:

(a) Subject to this By-Law, the Office Bearers and Councillors shall serve from the close of the Annual

Conference at which they are elected to the close of the Annual Conference in the second year following.

Motion 3.

That By-Law 4(b) (ii) be replaced by the following:

“The Councillors who retire shall be those taking office at the Annual Conference held two years previously and shall include a Councillor elected to fill a casual vacancy caused by a Councillor elected two years previously having ceased to hold such office.

Councillors shall be elected at the Annual General Meeting of the Regional Council of the Region that they represent. Elections shall be held under the Constitution of the Regional Council. Councillors shall take office at the end of the Annual Conference following the Annual General Meeting of the Regional Council at which they were elected. Vacancies shall be filled at a general meeting of the Regional Council.”

The relevant parts of the current By-Law 4 read:

(b) (i) At each Annual Conference one half (or as nearly as practicable one half) of the Councillors

representing each region or sub-region shall retire but if otherwise qualified shall be eligible for

reelection.

(b) (ii) The Councillors who retire shall be those elected at the Annual Conference held two years previously and shall include a Councillor elected to fill a casual vacancy caused by a Councillor elected two years previously having ceased to hold such office.

Motion 4.

That, should the motions above regarding the change of election procedures for Councillors be carried, the necessary editorials be made to By Law 4 to reflect the changes, including:

-Delete By Law 4 (d)

-Replace By Law 4 (r) with

“The Annual Conference or Council may by resolution fillsuch casual vacancies as may arise. Office Bearers so elected shall retire at the AnnualConference at which the original incumbent would haveretired”.

• Reduce the size of the Executive Committee to ten (from 18).

This will allow the Executive to be more effective and focused. It will be able to be run like the Management Committee (or Board) that many volunteer organisations have now adopted. The Management Committee, if run well, can make better commercial decisions, and reduce the need for the whole Council to be involved in the amount of unnecessary detail that now comes to Council.

Motion 5.

That By-Law 6(a) be replaced by the following:

“The Executive shall comprise the Office Bearers plus two Councillors elected by Council”.

The current By-Law 6 (a) reads:

(a) The Executive shall comprise the elected Office Bearers plus 10 Councillors.

• Provide for the election of Office Bearers by a state-wide ballot of affiliates.

This involves changing the Constitution and may not be considered until 2008 (Clause 13 (c) of the Constitution as printed in the 2006-07 Handbook).

• Policy

Motion 6 will allow Federation’s body of Policy to be less prescriptive, and will allow the elected Officers and Councillors to be more dynamic in their response to issues, challenges and opportunities.

It will also encourage more extensive and creative use of the Strategic Planning process to manage the affairs of Federation and to successfully promote public education.

This motion effectively transfers all of the current mandatory policy of Federation into a new category called “Guidance Notes”. The policy to be transferred can be seen in the 2006-2007 Handbook under Section 6. Its eleven Sections start at page 53 and end at page 111.

The higher level parts of the current policy, called “Premises” will become the much shortened Policy of Federation.

Motion 6.

That

(i)the complete body of the existing Policy of P&C Federation be replaced by the paragraphs referred to as “Premises” within the Policy of P&C Federation.

(ii)a new category of documentation be created called Guidance Notes. The Guidance Notes shall include the full current body of policy (Premises and Policies), and be available for guidance and historical perspective, but not be binding on Council.

• Strategic Plan

Motion 7.

That a new clause be added to the By-Laws after Clause 12, as follows: