The service of Business Alexandrina and its brand require a review, in order to understand its place in the market and ways to further invest in its development, or options for whether the model is no longer required and businesses in Alexandrina and beyond can be supported in other unstructured ways. The physical asset of the Business Hub in Goolwa needs to be reviewed as to whether it is beneficial to retain this space to proactively support businesses or whether the space could be used for another strategic purpose that may be lacking along the coast.

Centenary Hall currently has a single staff member operating model, which poses a business risk and is not sustainable for all of the responsibility to be on one staff member long term. In addition, there are a number of significant asset upgrades which need to occur. Without knowing options of what could be possible for this service in the future, it is difficult to know what the appropriate staff resourcing models or management models could be, and also the level to which these upgrades need to be prioritized and the level of investment that should be allocated, e.g. the lighting, audio visual and retractable seating assets all need upgrades.

The Strathalbyn Town Hall is currently being re-developed and we’d like to take the opportunity to investigate what the future use options could be for the space in that part of our Council region. Based on this, it is important to review options of the models of which it could be resourced or managed as well as a plan for what assets need to be further procured to facilitate the space and service into the future. Currently, the same single staff member operating model exists for Strathalbyn Town Hall as it does for Centenary Hall, Goolwa.

With the changes in the market over the past few years in relation to visitor information and tourism experiences, it would be wise review whether there any areas of opportunities to further enhance this service and ensure it is resourced effectively (both physically and virtually) to support visitation to our region. In Goolwa specifically, there is an opportunity for the location of the service to be moved into the Signal Point Experience Centre at the Goolwa Wharf which we would like to explore the advantages and disadvantages of that option.

The high-level objectives of this review are to assess the current scope and delivery of the above mentioned Alexandrina Council services and facilities against other comparable service providers, identify gaps in capacity and capability, and recommend appropriate service level structure and a delivery model to meet our goals.

These objectives to be completed by 30 June 2024.

Deliverable	Action
Review	Current service provision including current status, scope, resource levels, and service delivery models.
Benchmarking	Against comparable service providers
Identification	Of service gaps and options for resourcing those gaps. This includes an assessment of whether Council is meeting its statutory obligations concerning the level and scope of services provided.
Identification	Of current services and functions that should be discontinued or transferred to other services providers
Assessment	The current service delivery model against alternate models to determine potential changes to service delivery.
Analyse	Required deliverables to ensure services align with strategic direction.
Proposed	Directions of change against Council’s key directions to identify potential areas of change.

The successful professional consultancy companies, or company will enter into a non-exclusive, or exclusive agreement with Alexandrina Council for the three (3) community services listed.