All Councils develop a plan known as the Council Plan which sets out the strategic direction for each Council's 4-year term in office. It is required by legislation to be adopted by October 2021 and will guide the Council’s activities over the next four years. It is supported each year by an annual action plan to deliver the strategic direction. We are currently preparing the draft of the new Council Plan 2021 – 2025 will be uploaded to this platform on in early March 2021 for your feedback. View the draft Council Plan 2021 - 2025 here.

The Financial Plan is a ten-year plan that supports the Council Plan and contains a series of financial strategies and financial performance indicators that Council considers when making significant strategic decisions about resource allocation. You can view the current Financial Plan as an example.

It is important that the Council has an opportunity to validate their aspirations and that their priorities remain aligned to those of our broader community. It is also important that the supporting financial strategies in the Financial Plan, designed to deliver on those aspirations, are well-founded in community understanding and acceptance.

Specifically, the relationship to the Council Plan is that the Financial Plan drives financial strategies to ensure that Bayside is financially sustainable in the long term. Council needs to ensure that we can afford to deliver the aspirations of the Council Plan within the resources available.

The Bayside 2050 Community Vision is a consensus aspirational view of a desired future that sets out the key priorities, aspirations and values that Council and the community will use to help make decisions to shape the Bayside of the future.

Between October and December 2019, Bayside City Council commenced community engagement on the Bayside 2050 Community Vision. More than 850 local residents shared their ideas and feedback for the future via a range of activities including workshops, discussion groups, interviews, pop ups and a survey.

The Bayside 2050 Vision was developed by the Bayside 2050 Community Panel. The panel was asked to consider priorities for 2050, and emerging issues likely to shape Bayside’s future and to determine what would serve the community of Bayside best.

The Panel prepared a report that contains a vision and rationale, ten recommendations for themes and priorities that received ‘super majority’ support from the panel and two minority reports.

The Vision Statement developed by the Bayside 2050 Community Panel and endorsed by Council is:

"Bayside in 2050 leads the way demonstrably as a diverse, healthy and liveable place. We value economic and cultural progress, environmental sustainability and protection of open spaces and coastline, and we nurture inclusiveness, safety, accessibility, community vibrancy, creativity and innovation."

Read more about the Bayside 2050 Community Vision. [Link: https://yoursay.bayside.vic.gov.au/bayside-2050]

The Local Government Act 2020 states that all Councils must use deliberative engagement practices to develop their Council Plan, Community Vision, Financial Plan and Asset Management Plan.

The purpose of a deliberative engagement process is to involve the local community more closely in decisions that affect them.

Deliberative engagement practices are a fair and transparent process by which we provide the relevant representative people/group with the practical information, forums and resources they need to reach a considered conclusion and provide recommendations on a defined issue. This may occur in combination with other formats of research or engagement.

One form of deliberative engagement is a community panel. A community panel brings together a group of people who broadly represent the impacted stakeholders. Panel members are presented with relevant information and hear from experts, have an opportunity to discuss and debate with one another, and then make recommendations or provide a decision that is genuinely considered by Council in the final decision-making process.

For the deliberative process for the development of the Council Plan 2021-2025 and Financial Plan, we have selected to use a community panel.

Those selected part will review the draft Council 4-year plan, in the context of the Community Vision Bayside 2050 and other related information. They will have the opportunity to talk to family, friends and neighbours about the Plan and consider their feedback.

As a group they will then debate and agree on their recommendations to Council on the priorities for the next four years, including changes they would recommend to the draft Plan.

The Panel’s feedback will be presented to the Mayor and Councillors and will inform the final Council Plan and Financial Plan.

The Panel’s feedback and how it influenced the final Council Plan will be released to the wider community. To keep up to date with the process, click subscribe at the top of this page.

Over 10,000 randomly selected residents received an invitation to be on a 40-member Community Panel to delve deeply into the issues, options, challenges and opportunities in refining the Council Plan 2021 -2025.
Over 200 people applied to be on the Community Panel. An independent company then assessed the applications and through a further random selection, chose a panel of 40 people to represent Bayside based on broad demographic characteristics.