New Auckland Council’s Structure Too Complicated – Rodney Mayor

“The Auckland region will end up going to the dogs with residents of the new super city possibly having to adhere to 19 different dog bylaws unless changes are made to its proposed structure,” Rodney District Mayor Penny Webster has warned.

Mrs Webster appeared before the Auckland Governance Select Committee late yesterday to present Rodney District Council’s (RDC) submission on the third bill on Auckland Governance.

She said her Council had significant concerns about the bill, which it considered would create a governance structure that would be both confusing and costly to operate.

“The new structure for Auckland is complicated in the extreme and I can only see costs escalating as a result,” says Mayor Webster. The structure is outlined in the attached diagram.

“For example, in the Auckland region we currently have seven Councils making bylaws. Under the new structure we are likely to have 19 local boards having different bylaws, no doubt employing an army of lawyers to keep up with this demand.”

RDC submitted that the relationship between the various planning and strategy documents in the bill was unclear and that the relationship between the various plans needed to be defined.

Its view is that the long term strategy should guide the decisions of the Auckland Council and Council Controlled Organisations (CCOs). This strategy should be set out in the spatial plan and in a separate document which sets out the Council’s Strategic objectives. These objectives should be guided by community outcomes and the Mayoral Vision.

Mayor Webster says that democracy will become more complicated, not simpler under the new arrangements.

“The new local boards will have to deal with not one Council – but a Council and seven Council Controlled Organisations, although it still isn’t even clear how the boards can influence these CCOs, who will control most of the assets and funds of the existing Councils,” she added.

“There is also no explicit link between the local boards and their Auckland ward councillor under the draft legislation. Auckland Councillors will make most of the key decisions that will affect people in their area, yet they don’t even have to attend their local boards meetings so could have no idea about what the views of their community are!”

Mayor Webster says that the recent discussion document released for consultation by the Auckland Transition Agency outlining the proposed role for local boards confuses things even further

“It suggests in some places that local boards be involved in what are essentially low level management decisions, such as the choice of carpet at local libraries. It will be difficult for the new Council to get anything done if they find themselves tied up negotiating these sorts of details,” she explained.

“It makes no sense that local boards will be able to choose the colour of the library carpet, but we don’t know whether they will be able to have any input into key decisions by CCOs such as Watercare.”

Rodney District Council believed it was inappropriate that under the draft legislation the transport strategy of the new Council should be influenced by the priorities of an organisation that will soon be terminated (the ARC) until 2016. RDC submitted that a new regional transport strategy should be prepared by the Auckland Council in 2012.

It also submitted that Auckland Transport’s Board meetings should be open to public and that the criteria for the government to establish a Council Controlled Organisation was too broad and more detailed criteria is required.

ENDS

© Scoop Media