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Indicator: NCH-21 Number of local government heritage advisors

Data

State and Territory heritage advisory services
Australia - 1999 and 2005

State / Territory	Heritage Advisory Service	Date Started	Number of Council areas A served by advisors
			May 1999	2005
ACT	Nil			1 No councils
NSW	yes	1983	93	137 B of 152 councils (90%)
NT	yes	1994	2 (Top End, Alice Springs)	n/a
Qld	yes	1992	6	0 C
SA	yes	1987	15	2001 - 18 2002 - 21 2003 - 24 2004 - 25 (68 councils)
Tas	nil		3	5
Vic	yes	1977	44	61 (79 councils) (31 individual advisers)
WA	yes	1992	6	6 regions (several council areas each) 2 LGAs
TOTAL			152

Note:
many advisers also deal with Indigenous heritage issues; many of the advisors work part-time (some only 1 day per month)
^A Changes to numbers of councils, eg due to amalgamation, means that comparisons between 1999 and 2005 in terms of area / heritage covered are difficult
^B These councils either a heritage advisor position (122) and/or an officer knowledgeable in heritage matters (15); 93 of 107 rural councils have advisor position (87%), all 45 metropolitan councils have advisor (29), or officer (16) (100%) [issue re rural capacity / skills]; all have specialised training and experience in heritage management (http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiry/heritage/subs/sub139.rtf)
^C Reintroduction recommended by Cultural Heritage Ministerial Advisory Committee, February 2005 (Cultural Heritage Ministerial Advisory Committee - Final Report )
na - not available

Source: 2005 data: State/Territory heritage agencies; 1999 data: Australian Heritage Commission

Employment of heritage advisors
Proportion of responding councils
Australia - 2005

State	Councils who employ a heritage advisor	Proportion of heritage advisors employed on part-time basis	Average days per month a	Access to a heritage advisor employed by another council
	%	%	No	%
NSW	81.5	85.0	2.1	1.5
Vic	83.9	96.2	2.7	1.6
Qld	9.3	77.8	2.9	4.1
WA	31.4	92.6	3.2	11.6
SA	43.8	92.9	1.9	6.3
Tas	31.8	85.7	5.0	0.0

^a For part-time advisors

Source: Productivity Commission 2005, Productivity Commission Survey of Local Governments 2005, Commonwealth of Australia, Melbourne, viewed 24 Mar 2006, http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiry/heritage/draftreport/heritage.pdf, p. 237

What the data mean

There has been an increase in the number of council areas that are served by heritage advisory services between 1999 and 2005. In NSW 90% of council areas are covered by heritage advisory services.

Queensland has the lowest number of councils employing heritage advisors followed by Western Australia and Tasmania. However, in Western Australia the councils have access to heritage advisors employed by another council and the average number of days per month that part-time advisors work is the second highest among the States.

Most heritage advisors work on a part-time basis and for a small number of days per month, average maximum of 5 days in Tasmania and an average minimum of 1.9 days in South Australia.

Data Limitations

It is known that many / most heritage advisers only work part-time for any particular local government, but these data do not indicate whether these resources allocated are sufficient, nor whether the advisors have the adequate skills, nor what the pressures are in those local areas that impact on the advisers’ ability to look after heritage.

Issues for which this is an indicator and why

Natural and Cultural Heritage — Expertise and skills for managing heritage - Training and participation in the heritage industries 

The number of heritage advisers in local government is indicative of local government’s capacity to effectively manage heritage.

Other indicators for this issue:

• NCH-17 Number and distribution of professional heritage-related courses, enrolments and graduates 
• NCH-18 Membership of selected peak professional heritage associations 
• NCH-19 Number of volunteers trained by heritage organisations and institutions 
• NCH-20 Number of people working in indigenous organisations, number of indigenous enrolments in university heritage courses, number of Indigenous people employed by agencies involved in Indigenous programs & management of Indigenous heritage 
• NCH-22 Number of professional heritage employees in government agencies 

Further Information

• Conservation of Australia's Historic Heritage Places