VICTORIA’S premier automotive industry association has revealed plans for its new headquarters and confirmed a radical boardroom reshuffle that will provide the building blocks to ensure policy and financial security for its members for the next 100 years.

It will also expand the business opportunities of its OurAuto products and services division to stretch outside the automotive industry and beyond Victorian borders.

The outlook is timely given the Victorian Automobile Chamber of Commerce (VACC) this week turns 100 years old and has coincided its birthday by planning a sharper, leaner and more dynamic organisation that can take vital member issues through state and federal government levels.

The VACC announced to GoAutoNews Premium this week that it has slashed the members of its executive board to nine from its long-standing 32-member committee.

VACC CEO Geoff Gwilym said the board restructure would now comprise a nine-member executive committee and a separate industry policy council with 15 divisions to discuss industry policy.

“The VACC had a traditional board structure with 32 members plus the past presidents on our board of management,” he said.

“While it had worked well for many years – and one that was reduced from 64 members in the past – it was clear the board meeting was trying to cover everything from governance to finance to strategic.

“The decision I took was to separate the board, to have a board of governance (executive board) and a policy committee, which we didn’t previously have.

”The 16 divisions within the VACC have to report to somewhere for broader discussion. So we have gone from 34 plus an executive board, to an executive board of nine and an industry policy council with 15 divisions – down from 16 – to talk about industry policy.

“One group is about governance and direction, the other around formulating VACC’s policy and ensuring there’s a connection between the divisions.

“It removes duplicating processes and streamlines our decision making. There are huge cost savings, but (it is) more about time than money, and we can now make the right decisions in the right room.

“Providing advocacy at a government level still takes up 40 per cent of our total energy and that sits right in the heart of what the VACC is about.

“It also shows there is a face when dealing with government and that decisions made by government have our input to ensure that decisions don’t damage our industry.

“Even 100 years in, that part hasn’t changed – our members should get the best possible voice to be heard in government at both state and federal levels.”

The backdrop to this is the new building that the VACC plans to be operational within three years on a site bought at 644 Victoria Street in North Melbourne.

Designs for the building are now being assessed and Mr Gwilym said that “over the next 32 months we will bulldoze the workshop on the property and build a purpose-built VACC headquarters

“It is four storeys high and will have a training centre in the basement to lift the quality of our own apprentices in our training scheme – there are 530 of those – while we can also offer training to the automotive industry to improve the training for the trades,” he said.

“I don’t think we will sublet like we did with the previous building. We have more than 100 staff and we want the building to look like it is made for the members.

“I want it to be a technical facility, a training facility, a meeting facility and I want to go back to having a building that the members feel it is theirs and one that is attractive and welcomes members.”

Mr Gwilym said the move away from having tenants – which it had for about 60 years prior with its current building in St Kilda – would free up staff demands on property management.

“I want us to be focused on members and member benefits and I think a purpose-built building removes that obligation so we can focus on core business,” he said.

The new building will cost the VACC about $35 million to $40 million including the price of the land.

“We have some money left over but that will go to offset the cost of running the business and to keep the membership fees low,” Mr Gwilym said.

“I need to top the capital fund up and I’d like to see a situation where we never draw down more than three per cent of the capital fund every year.

“If we don’t draw down more than three per cent, we can go for another 100 years. We are around five per cent now and I think we can get it to three per cent in the next five years.”

By Neil Dowling