How quickly could your council keep operating if a key role suddenly became vacant?

If your Finance Manager retired next month, would the rates still go out on time? If your only Environmental Health Officer resigned, who would inspect food premises while you spent six months recruiting? For a small council, the knowledge, licences and relationships held by one person must not walk out the door with them.

This whitepaper adapts succession planning to Australian local government. It draws on council workforce data, not corporate HR research, and sets out a five-step framework built around two things small councils often lack: depth behind critical roles, and somewhere to promote people to.