It is not particularly effective. The local council rejected a submission that the committee become a council committee. The committee meets monthly and a council officer attended the last meeting. Bathurst Information and Neighbourhood Centre Decentralisation is required to maintain viable rural communities. People, including people of non English speaking background, will come to a rural town and stay only if there are services to meet their needs.
Government departments have a city mentality.
Funding arrangements do not reflect country concerns and country costs. Public servants are not aware of the implications of their programs for country communities. There is too little coordination between departments in service delivery and so things just fall through the cracks and money is not spent as well as it should be. There is a need for centres to provide supervised access for non-custodial parents. The neighbourhood centre is being asked to provide access supervisors but it is not its job, its staff and volunteers are not trained for that and the centre has no funding for it.