The elected council and the administration of the City of Melbourne perform functions and exercise powers prescribed by the Local Government Act 1989 and deliver a range of services to residents, business and visitors to the municipality.
The branches that provide services and perform functions keep documents associated with their work. We have a list of the Types of documents and records held by the branches.
There are other documents, such as manuals, guidelines and procedures, which officers use to make decisions or recommendations which enforce Acts of Parliament, for example, the Food Act. We issue officers with guidelines which they use to enforce these acts. This type of document may be inspected or purchased. We are required to give you a list of these documents and update this annually. At this stage we are working on compiling this list and will post it on this site as soon as it is ready.
Copies of some of these documents can be obtained or inspected by any member of the public. Some will have a charge associated with them but many of them can simply be given to you.
You can ring the main switchboard on 9658 9658 and ask to be directed to one of the branches of the council or to the Council Business team. You can also ask the customer service officers at the front desk of the administration wing of the Melbourne Town Hall or log onto our web site.
There are some other ways to get information about what we do too.
Council and committees
You can attend any of the open meetings of the council and its committees. We publicise the schedule of meetings on the notice board at the Melbourne Town Hall, the City, North Melbourne and East Melbourne libraries and the Carlton Community Centre. We also post information here on our website.
The Audit committee considers and makes recommendations to the Council and the Council’s management on many issues and internal audits.
We also have a number of Advisory committees which have open meetings and advise us on matters of immediate importance.
Registers of information
We compile Registers of information which is particularly relevant to our responsibilities as a local government and a public sector organisation. These are available for public inspection. For instance, registers of the pecuniary interests of councillors and senior staff, the salaries of senior officers and lists of grants, contributions and memberships.
Public libraries
We operate three Public libraries which provide a free lending service. Notices of the meetings of the council and its committees are also posted there.
Publications
We publish a number of Newsletters, reports and handbooks for residents, businesses and visitors to the city. You can download them from Plans and publications or call us for a copy. In some cases these publications are also kept at the public libraries.
Freedom of information applications
If the information and documents you want cannot be got by any of these means, then the Freedom of Information Act 1982 gives you a right of access to documents that we hold. Read more at Freedom of Information.
We recommend that you give us a call before you make an application. Like we have indicated, you may not need to apply under the act to get the documents that you want. We may be able to clarify for you what is available for public inspection or help you contact the right branch.