Understanding Council Staffing: The People Behind Local Services
Published on 24 July 2026
Through Council's Early Insights Survey, residents shared valuable feedback and asked a range of questions about Council’s services, finances and workforce. Understanding how Council’s workforce supports service delivery was one of the topics raised by the community.
As part of the focus on Financial Sustainability, Council is committed to being open and transparent with the community and providing information that helps residents better understand how local government operates. This article forms part of Council’s ongoing commitment to share information on topics raised through the Early Insights Survey, including how Council’s workforce is structured, the services staff deliver and how staffing has changed over time.
What council delivers:
While roads, rates and rubbish remain core Council responsibilities, the community also expects Council to maintain parks and sports fields, support local events and tourism, provide libraries and youth services, manage recreation facilities, assess development applications, maintain cemeteries and public toilets, and advocate for better services across the Shire.
These services rely on people with a wide range of skills, from technical specialists through to customer service, finance and regulatory staff.
What our community told us:
In 2024, Council undertook community consultation to better understand local priorities. Residents identified priorities across a range of service areas including roads, waste and recycling, community safety, youth and community services, environmental management, economic development, and improved access to health, childcare and aged care support.
These priorities help guide Council’s planning and reflect the broad range of services the community expects Council to support or provide, many of which require both staff time and ongoing funding to deliver.
Many of these priorities extend beyond Council's traditional and statutory responsibilities, demonstrating the broader role the community increasingly expects local government to play.
The relationship between services and staffing:
There is a direct relationship between the services Council provides and the people required to deliver them.
Roads require engineers, supervisors and plant operators. Waste services require operational staff. Development applications require qualified planners and building inspectors. Libraries, youth programs and community facilities require staff to operate them safely and effectively.
Many of these services are also governed by legislation. Council must maintain appropriate staffing capability to meet legal obligations in areas such as planning, environmental health, work health and safety, finance, governance, sewer operations, road safety and public health.
This means staffing decisions are not only about facility management and service demand, but also about Council’s responsibility to meet legal and operational requirements.
Where council staff work:
In addition to delivering day-to-day services, each area of Council is also responsible for implementing actions from the Community Strategic Plan — the community's long-term vision for Temora Shire.
The table below shows the size of each service area alongside the number of Community Strategic Plan projects it is responsible for delivering or supporting and the facilities they manage.
While the number of Community Strategic Plan projects is not a direct measure of workload, it demonstrates the breadth of priorities being managed across the organisation alongside the delivery of everyday services.
More than half of Council's workforce is employed in Engineering and Environmental Services, delivering and maintaining the infrastructure and facilities residents use every day. Many other roles support frontline services, helping residents at the counter, processing applications, managing rates, operating community facilities and keeping Council services running.
The workforce figures in this article relate to Council’s core operations and do not include Pinnacle Community Services. Pinnacle delivers aged and disability support services under a different funding model to Council’s general operations, with services fully funded through government aged care and disability programs. Following a service review several years ago, Pinnacle consolidated its services to focus on the Temora Shire, which makes historical workforce comparisons less meaningful. Excluding Pinnacle provides a clearer picture of changes within Council’s core operational workforce.
However, Pinnacle remains an important part of Council’s broader operations. Council employs 35 highly valued staff members through Pinnacle Community Services, who deliver critical aged and disability support services to 476 local clients.
What has happened to staffing levels:
Council’s staffing levels have remained relatively stable over the past five years.
Full-time equivalent (FTE) positions across Council operations (excluding Pinnacle) moved from 72 in 2020-21 to 78 in 2024-25. This represents an increase of six full-time equivalent positions (8.3%) over five years.
Council’s senior management structure has remained largely unchanged over that period, with four senior management positions in 2024-25, the same as in 2020-21.
This indicates that while some roles and service areas have changed over time, there has not been significant organisational growth. Over that same period, Council has continued to deliver a broad range of services while responding to increasing legislative requirements, grant opportunities and community expectations.
What has driven workforce changes:
Looking only at total staff numbers does not always show the full picture of how a workforce changes over time.
While new positions are often more visible to the community, they do not always represent growth in Council's workforce. Many advertised roles over recent years were replacement positions where an existing role was required to continue delivering services or were funded through external grants or created to meet new legislative requirements. This includes:
- governance, risk and people and culture roles, introduced to meet increased legislative requirements, strengthen compliance, and support workforce management and organisational risk
- community development and project roles, often grant-funded, supporting externally funded programs and initiatives
- Fresh Start apprentices, cadets and trainees funded by the NSW State Government
Council also regularly reviews its organisational structure. In some cases this has meant combining roles or deciding not to replace positions when staff have left, with responsibilities absorbed into existing teams where appropriate.
Understanding employee costs:
Employee costs are a significant part of Council’s expenditure because people are essential to delivering services.
While employee costs increased from $5.7 million to $7.2 million per annum over five years, this reflects a combination of award wage increases, legislated superannuation increases, employment on-costs such as workers compensation, training and compliance requirements, as well as modest changes to staffing.
Award wages for local government employees are determined through a state-wide industrial process that sits outside Council's control. While Council is not involved in setting these increases, it is legally required to implement the award and meet all associated employment obligations.
Benchmarking against other NSW Group 10 councils (i.e. councils of a comparable size) shows Temora Shire Council ranks low in terms of workforce size. In 2025-26, Council employed 88 full-time staff (excluding Pinnacle), placing Temora 9th out of 11.
Looking ahead:
Council continues to focus on delivering services efficiently and sustainably, while making sure it has the right people and skills in the right areas.
That includes reviewing services, identifying productivity improvements, and ensuring staffing is aligned to community priorities, legislative obligations and long-term financial sustainability.
Continuing the conversation:
The Early Insights Survey provided valuable feedback about the services the community values and the questions residents have about Council’s operations.
Council will continue to share information on key topics raised through the survey as part of its commitment to an informed community conversation.
As Council moves into the next phase of its financial sustainability planning, residents are invited to take part in the formal community consultation process regarding the proposed Special Rate Variation and help shape the future of services across Temora Shire.