Counting the cost: An analysis of the post-merger performance of the Clarence Valley Council in New South Wales

The merged Clarence Valley Council (CVC) in northern New South Wales (NSW) was proclaimed in February 2004 as part of the broader forced municipal amalgamation program by the New South Wales (NSW) Government. Architects of the compulsory consolidation of numerous NSW councils in 2004, including the CVC, contended that larger merged councils would exhibit superior performance, especially in financial terms. In many respects, the CVC represented the 'jewel in the crown' of the 2003/04 NSW merger program given its iconic environmental circumstances. Unfortunately, comparatively little scholarly effort has been expended on examining the outcomes of compulsory council amalgamations of specific municipalities after considerable time has passed, in large part due to the thorny methodological difficulties involved. This paper seeks to remedy this gap in the empirical literature by developing a new methodological approach to the problem and using it to evaluate the financial performance of the CVC a decade after its forced merger as an illustrative case study.