But the city’s chief executive office Craig Niemann said a cultural of institutional change was the biggest outcome from the review undertaken in 2013.

“It’s a ‘can do’ attitude, it’s a positive approach to change, that you can’t be afraid of change,” Mr Niemann said.

“The Local Government Act is going to change next year, there is going to be a change of council, there’ll be a whole host of different things happen so it’s about how the organisation responds to that.”

The review was the first major initiative of the current council after it was elected in 2012. In June 2013 the Independent Review Committee gave council until this October to adopt 69 recommendations. 

They included a personnel evaluation system to track the performance of the city’s directorates, units and individuals, new framework for evaluating, prioritising and funding capital works and improvements to systems for logging, tracking and handling customer inquiries and complaints.

From July 2013 through June 2017 the costs of the process are expected to exceed $2.3 million, with $1.2 million spent on additional staff, more than $100,000 spent on staff training and more than $400,000 spent on software and communications equipment. 

However, the city said savings in the same time period would exceed $6.6 million, with more than $4.8 million shaved from expenditure on consultants, contractors and external services. 

Mr Niemann said the city was committed to continual improvement through internal audits and service reviews, but that further independent reviews would be a matter for future councillors. 

“There was discussion at the time about whether this should happen every eight years, so perhaps every second term of council,” he said. 

“And you could argue that councillors are are elected to do this, they are elected to make sure that I run the organisation as effectively as I can.” 

Mayor Rod Fyffe endorsed the review, saying the community had been brought into the process. 

“The end result is that the organisation is, A, more efficient and responsive, B, better governed and, C, better equipped to engage with needs of a growing community,” Cr Fyffe said.