I get your point, yet I doubt the tweaking of expenses will be a...

I get your point, yet I doubt the tweaking of expenses will be a great as you imagine and yes it all depends what the top is like...the CEO and the Board. [covered in my first posting]

In my opinion all shareholders who own real estate should be doing as much as they can to contact the CEO's of their respective Shires and Councils to impress upon them their responsibility to the property owning ratepayers and not to their staff keeping their cushy jobs or creating programs to ensure their staff can justify their positions and thus their need to keep increasing council rates.

MAKING money is only one way of increasing our respective standards of living but SAVING money is another way of reducing our cost of living. In Victoria the State Governments have relinquished their responsibilities over Councils and Shires because of the fear of being perceived to be responsible for the ever increasing Council rates which is like paying rent from $40-80 per week. The States are responsible but pretend not to be.

Councils, Shires and States is where best your suggested Changing the 'ethos' of a government business is where I see the biggest improvement in efficiency. Competence over compliance, less governance, less political influence, the ability to actively pursue cost savings, BUT NOT growth opportunities, etc. Most of the big savings will be driven from the top down ... I totally agree.