State of the City Reporting

In November 2007, the Frankston 2025 Community Vision came to life! The launch of this important document marked 12 months of community involvement to develop a long-term community vision for Frankston City.

During March and April, Council encouraged community feedback on a draft set of indicators for developing a 'State of the City Report'. This Report will track progress towards achieving the Community Vision and will guide decisions about important community issues to achieve a sustainable future for Frankston City.

Introduction

Aim

For Frankston City Council and its community to work together to establish a set of community indicators for State of the City Reporting, that will measure and report on long-term progress towards achieving the Frankston 2025 Community Vision.

Benefits

• As a community we can measure progress and report towards achieving the Frankston 2025 Community Vision, using community indicators to identify long-term trends, as well as successes and challenges over time.
• We will have better information on views and issues that are important to the whole community. This information will guide and influence decisions made by both Council and the community.
• It helps us focus on long-term actions to achieve sustainability. For example, rather than looking at an immediate output such as the provision of new recreational facilities, we instead focus on how the community is supported to achieve healthy lives, such as the increased participation in recreational activities.
• The State of the City Report will provide a snapshot view of the 'state' and health of Frankston City to track progress and compare outcomes with other cities.
• We will also develop information to assist Council in advocating to other levels of government for a) access to relevant data sets, and b) priority setting on important community issues.

Community Involvement

The State of the City Reporting project intends to be more than just a report; it is also a process to inform and engage a wide range of stakeholders.

Throughout March and April 2008, Council sought ideas from the community to help select indicators to shape the first State of the City Report. Community feedback was encouraged through:

• Frankston 2025 Web site
• Mail-out and e-mails to the Frankston 2025 Community Database
• Advertisements in the local papers
• Information displays at Council's Customer Service Centres
• Distribution of flyers and posters across the City
• A community forum on 12 April 2008
• Targeted focus group meetings including Council's advisory committees and 'harder to reach' communities (i.e youth).
• Meetings with the Frankston 2025 Advisory Committee

Next Steps

• June 2008 - a report to Council outlining the outcomes of the community consultation - identifying the preferred indicators for establishing the first draft State of the City Report.
• 2008-2009 - development of the draft State of the City Report in consultation with key stakeholders, and in particular, the 'data owners' - internally and externally. It's proposed that this will be a milestone report with no more than 20-40 community indicators, providing a baseline of measurement for future reports.

For more information

Contact Nicola Albery, Frankston City Council on 9784 1067 or e-mail frankston2025@frankston.vic.gov.au.

Examples of similar projects

The following links provide examples of similar projects. We encourage you to look at these examples and consider how these projects might inform the development of State of the City Reporting for Frankston City:

Similar Projects

Similar Projects	Stakeholder(s) / Links
State of the City Report	City of Onkaparinga, www.onkaparingacity.com
Community Pulse project (sustainability indicators)	City of Port Phillip, www.portphillip.vic.gov.au
Outer Eastern Region Sustainability Indicators project	Collaborative project with the City of Maroondah, City of Knox, Shire of Yarra Ranges and the Centre for Regional Development at Swinburne University of Technology, www.swin.edu.au
Community Indicators Victoria (CIV) project	Collaborative project, funded by VicHealth and hosted by the McCaughey Centre, School of Population Health, at the University of Melbourne www.communityindicators.net.au