Council Connections: Spotlight on the City of Casey

For our third event in the Council Connections series we held a Spotlight Session at the City of Casey to showcase the new Civic & Arts Centre, Bunjil Place.

The way local government needs to operate is quickly evolving, and the City of Casey has taken on the challenge to adapt.

With a cost of $125 million and 5 years in the making, Bunjil Place is one of the largest projects undertaken by local government in Australia. In addition to the council offices, the design features an 800-seat regional theatre, studio, art gallery, community library and meeting rooms, and community plaza.

The new Civic Centre has implemented a wide range of new technologies and flexible working practices. By creating the opportunity for more flexible working, it has enabled a more developed agile organisation, who can more effectively respond to changing community expectations and maintain a strong focus on delivering the services and infrastructure the community wants and needs.

We started the day with a guided tour through VIBE.

VIBE is the user testing environment which allowed all staff to shape the current Bunjil Place and aided the success of its opening. All Casey employees spent four weeks in the pilot site. During this time, they were introduced to the flexible working practices and had the opportunity to provide feedback, which in turn shaped Bunjil Place. This early adoption of flexible working fostered a change in mindset which allowed the staff to hit the ground running from day one. Improved technology such as smart mobile devices, headsets and a web-based phone system also provide increased opportunities for staff to work more efficiently and collaborate across office locations.

Following the walk through of VIBE, Council Connections attendees enjoyed informative presentations from different teams within the business who had worked towards creating the new civic centre. These included:

• Technology team – “Progression to the cloud, Wi-Fi solutions & challenges faced”
• Digital team – “Casey’s digital strategy and where to go from here”
• New Ways team – “The transition to a new working environment”

The event concluded with a guided tour of Bunjil Place, as a way to showcase how the five years of planning and development had been put into practice.

We hope that our Council Connections attendees took as much from the day as we did. The day would not have been possible without Len Gemelli and the team at the City of Casey who welcomed us into their environment and shared with the group their invaluable insights into change, collaboration and innovation! A big thank you for supporting Council Connections and our vision for knowledge sharing in the local government community.

About Council Connections

Council Connections is an ongoing series of events which began in April 2017. Through this series, we aim to provide a platform for Council leaders to come together as a community for proactive collaboration, innovation, knowledge sharing and networking.

If you like to know more about the City of Casey’s journey or the Council Connections series, please feel free to reach out. We are always on the look out for inspiring new speakers to feature at our upcoming events – if this sounds like you, please get in touch by emailing me at Evelien.Leon@mtr.com.au or calling me directly on 03 9674 3315.

We’d love to hear from you!