Council Plan and Budget

We’ve collaborated with residents, ratepayers, visitors and businesses to develop a community vision, and to plan for the city together.

Thank you for your contributions. Consultation on these four key draft plans has now closed and the final plans were adopted by Council on 29 June 2021.

The plans include:

1. Council Plan 2021–25
2. Budget 2021–22
3. Revenue and Rating Plan 2021-25
4. Economic Development Strategy

Council Plan 2021–25

Budget 2021–22

How we will activate the city in the first year of the new Council Plan. Includes our biggest-ever investment in capital works.

Revenue and Rating Plan 2021-25

Economic Development Strategy

News

Timeline

Timeline item 3 - complete Special Future Melbourne Committee to hear community feedback on Draft Council Plan, Budget and Revenue and Rating Plan

Council Plan 2021–25 (incorporating the Community Vision and Health and Wellbeing Plan), alongside the Budget 2021-22, Economic Development Strategy and Revenue and Rating Plan 2021–25 are presented to Council for endorsement. 5.30pm, 29 June 2021

FAQs

• What is the Budget?
• What is a Community Vision, Municipal Public Health and Wellbeing Plan, and Council Plan?
• What is a Revenue and Rating Plan?
• What is an Economic Development Strategy?

FAQs

• What is the Budget?
• The draft Budget 2021–22 shows how we will finance the first year of the four-year Council Plan 2021–25. In accordance with Section 94(1) of the Local Government Act 2020, a Council must prepare and adopt a Budget for each financial year and the subsequent 3 financial years. The Council must ensure that the Budget contains financial statements and other information including capital works, human resources and grants. The Budget must contain the amount which the council intends to raise by general rates, municipal charges, service rates and service charges and whether general rates will be raised by the application of a uniform rate, differential rate or limited differential rate. The Budget must include a description of services, major initiatives and initiatives to be funded for the financial year and how they will contribute to achieving the strategic objectives as specified in the Council Plan. For the services to be funded in the Budget, the Budget must also include the prescribed indicators of service performance that must be reported against in the performance statement and the prescribed measures relating to those indicators. The Budget is a statutory requirement and council Council must adopt the Budget by 30 June each year.
• What is a Community Vision, Municipal Public Health and Wellbeing Plan, and Council Plan?
• A Community Vision is designed to articulate the 10-year aspirations that the community has for the municipality. City of Melbourne’s Community Vision features a vision statement and narrative, supported by a series of aspiration statements that are drawn from insights that emerged during the community engagement. The Community Vision also helps to guide the development of the four year Council Plan 2021–25, which includes our Health and Wellbeing Plan. Find out more about the Community Vision consultation.
  Our Health and Wellbeing Plan outlines the areas Council will focus on over the next four years to protect, improve and promote public health and wellbeing within the municipality. This is the fourth time Council has chosen to integrate our Health and Wellbeing Plan into the Council Plan. Find out more about the Health and Wellbeing Plan consultation. The Council Plan defines the Council’s strategic objectives for the next four years, and the priorities and major initiatives it will deliver to achieve those objectives.
  It also outlines a set of indicators and targets which measure progress. It is informed by the community’s aspirations as outlined in the Community Vision, as well as Council’s role, responsibilities and financial position.
• What is a Revenue and Rating Plan?
• The Revenue and Rating Plan seeks to identify each source of revenue to be included in the budget and the policy rationale / assumptions that underpin these. Council provides a number of services and facilities to our community, and in doing so, must collect revenue to cover the cost of providing these services and facilities. Council’s revenue sources include:
  • Rates and charges
  • Grants from other levels of government
  • Statutory fees and fines
  • User fees
  • Cash and non-cash contributions from other parties (ie developers, community groups)
  • Interest from investments

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  Have questions or want to learn more about the project?

  Acknowledgement of Traditional Owners

  The City of Melbourne respectfully acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land we govern, the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong / Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin and pays respect to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge and honour the unbroken spiritual, cultural and political connection they have maintained to this unique place for more than 2000 generations.

  We accept the invitation in the Uluru Statement from the Heart and are committed to walking together to build a better future.

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  The City of Melbourne takes the privacy of the participants using this site very seriously.

  Our collection, use and disclosure of your personal information is regulated by the Victorian Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014. You can find more information about your privacy rights at the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner.

  This Privacy Statement applies to Participate Melbourne. For information about the broader collection and use of personal information by the City of Melbourne, please refer to our Privacy Policy.

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  Your feedback, including all demographic details you choose to submit, will be forwarded in the first instance to the relevant City of Melbourne work area with responsibility for administering the subject matter or project to which your feedback relates.

  The City of Melbourne has created a central repository (the Knowledge Bank) of all survey responses. The City of Melbourne seeks to maintain your anonymity within the Knowledge Bank. Any personally identifiable information that you provide, including name and contact details, will be excluded or masked within the Knowledge Bank to preserve your anonymity. When you have consented, staff members will also add any verbal feedback you provide to them, in their interactions with you, to the Knowledge Bank. The Knowledge Bank tags survey responses based on the subject matter and the suburb from which they are received. Staff members can filter the responses in the Knowledge Bank by subject matter, suburb, age, and/or gender to inform future projects, gain insights into neighbourhood sentiment or key themes, and to ensure the provision of consistent service delivery across the organisation.

  To further protect your anonymity, staff members can only view statistics on responses to questions about sexual orientation and ethnicity in the Knowledge Bank where a minimum 10 per cent of participants provide the same response. Unlike other demographic responses staff members cannot filter these statistics in conjunction with detailed survey responses.

  While the City of Melbourne takes multiple measures to protect the anonymity of survey respondents, we ask that you help us reduce the risk of inappropriate information access and exposure by not including other information in your survey response that could possibly identify you or others.

  Moderation
  

  By monitoring this additional information that you provide, we are able to protect the integrity of the discussions from individuals and groups who may attempt to unduly influence the outcomes of a consultation process. For example, we check to ensure each user has a single email account. We also review the site to protect it from spam or trolls.

  Third parties

  We may also disclose personal information to third parties, and you consent to us disclosing your personal information, for the following purposes:

  The following research consultants engaged by the City of Melbourne to assist with reviewing, interpreting and gaining insights into feedback submitted via Participate Melbourne:

  • Global Research Limited (ABN: 26158335950). Global Research securely stores the raw feedback responses on Microsoft Azure servers located in Melbourne and Sydney data centres.
  • Capire Consulting Group (ABN 52 125 105 660)
  • Cultural Perspectives (ABN 30 065 353 951).
  • Elton Consulting (ABN 56 003 853 101).
  • Liminal by Design (ABN 20 614 850 190).
  • Max Hardy Consulting (ABN 44 704 423 122)
  • MosaicLab (ABN 29 650 739 230).
  • Red Road Consulting (ABN 99 080 294 522).
  • RPS AAP Consulting (ABN 97 117 883 173).
  • C3X (ABN 68 606 157 091).
  • Phoenix Facilitation Limited (ABN 74 098 731 830).
  • Jacinta Cubis (ABN 33 233 001 231).
  • Conversation Caravan (ABN 25 824 367 005)

  The insights derived from the feedback by the research consultants assist the City of Melbourne with identifying particular patterns or areas for service improvement and the creation of better projects, plans and policies. The information supplied to the research consultants is limited to raw feedback responses and excludes the provision of your name, contact details or other information that could directly identify you. All consultants have agreed to the collect ion , use and disclos ure of the raw feedback responses in accordance this Privacy Collection Statement for using Participate Melbourne.

  In the case of submissions you make on planning scheme amendments, the Council will disclose your entire submission including your contact details to Planning Panels Victoria which sits within the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning. Submissions and contact details are stored in a Panel Book (typically a OneDrive file shared between all parties to the panel, where it is stored for 3 months before deleting) . Planning Panels Victoria will facilitate all contact with you on matters relating to the panel process including to circulate agendas, inform you of the date and time of the panel hearing and to send correspondence to you on any other matters relating to the relevant planning scheme amendment.

  The City of Melbourne will not disclose your information to another external party without your consent, unless required or authorised by law.

  From time to time, the City of Melbourne engages research consultants to help identify particular patterns or areas for service improvements, and for project and policy development. Knowledge Bank i nformation, when supplied to research consultants, will have personally identifiable information excluded but include demographic details you have chosen to share in your survey response. All consultants have agreed to the collect ion, use and disclosure of survey responses in accordance with this Privacy Collection Statement for using Participate Melbourne.

  Access and correction

  If you wish to access, correct or delete any of the personal information you have supplied to the City of Melbourne, please send your request to Council via email to participate@melbourne.vic.gov.au.

  Updated July 2023