1994-05-01 Essex County Strategic Strengthening Study - Overview Report

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ESSEX COUNTY STRATEGIC STRENGTHENING STUDY OVERVIEW REPORT MAY 1994 1.0 BACKGROUND AND STEPS TO DATE County Council established a Strategic Strengthening Committee in January 1993. The purpose of the Committee was to look at local and County government with- a view to achieving efficiencies. The thrust of the Committee's work has been to find solutions from within Essex through a "bottom up" as opposed to "top down" approach to problem solving. This has involved ongoing commitment by the sub-committee chairpersons responsible for individual services and by service providers through a series of workshops. There have been two streams to the Committee's work. The first stream was to identify a County Vision through the direct participation of County Council on common goals. The second stream was to analyze individual services with an aim to finding practical actions which could increase the efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery to Essex County taxpayers. The following steps were taken: • County Council adopted a Mission Statement to reduce taxes. • The Committee retained facilitators who had experience with successful local government restructuring exercises. County staff were also-appointed to assist the Committee in research and co-ordination. • County Council held its own Vision Session on May 26, 1993 (see Tab 1). • A questionnaire on public attitudes regarding local government was conducted through the local public and separate school system (see Tab 2). • Local municipalities were surveyed and 19 local Vision Sessions were held in the summer and fall of 1993 (see Tab 3). • Local municipalities were asked to complete a municipal questionnaire. The questionnaire provided an overview of service delivery and resulted in a Service Delivery Analysis report (see Tab 4). • Workshops were held on a "service by service" basis with service providers with the specific aim of identifying actions which could improve service delivery and realize the best return for the dollars spent. The Strategic Strengthening Committee had established a series of sub-committees with a chairperson responsible for each service (see Tab 5). • Regular communication bulletins were released by these Strategic Strengthening Committee to local municipalities (see Tab 6).