Super City of Auckland
Earlier today the Royal Commission has published the long anticipated report on Auckland Governance. And yes, a super single city structure was recommended. For details see the report, if you are not that technical, just read the news, but don't expect to read it here as I'll only discuss the aspects of my interest.
It's quite similar to what I expected, but bit different from what I wanted (I'll talk about this later). A "supercity" looked inevitable, but I also expected that the current local councils structure will be maintained at some degree, it's common sense that one grand council will not work. There are two common misconceptions in the general public, and a right wing government actually fuelled them: first, bigger is better; second, this investigation is about cost cutting.
The objective of the commission, was cleared stated as:
to receive representations on, inquire into, investigate, and report on the local government arrangements (including institutions, mechanisms, and processes) that
are required in the Auckland region over the foreseeable future in order to maximise, in a cost effective manner,—
(a) the current and future well-being of the region and its communities; and
(b) the region’s contribution to wider national objectives and outcomes.
Most people tend to confuse the meaning of "cost cut" with "cost effective". In fact, in my opinion, one council that takes care of everything is not necessarily cost-cutting, and has the potential to actually increase the total cost. However, with the right management, the super city council can be cost effective. This change will eventually save a bit of money in the short run, but will it be the sum that public sector killers (aka Nats) wanted? Not necessarily:
Preliminary analysis, which will need to be quantified in detail by the Establishment Board, suggests that adopting the Commission’s proposals for structural change will result in estimated efficiency savings in the indicative range of 2.5% to 3.5% of the total expenditure of the Auckland councils planned for 2008/09 (of around $3.2 billion). This represents estimated efficiency gains of between $76 million to $113 million per year.
113 million sounds like a lot, but when translated into rates, it's really not that many, at least I doubt it - the integration costs, as suggested by the commission, cost even more than that at around 200 million, and I also expect more people employed in the long term to manage such a large city. I can only see substantial cost saving from council owned organisations like water supply, that is likely to same a fair amount of money, but whether that saving will be transferred to you ... well, it's at local politicians' discretion, and that's bit scary, as a unified region is more likely to return a left leaning mayor, due to the majority of the population are urban.
I agree with the Commission's decision to maintain the current local council structure in principle.However, I don't agree the functions though:
In addition to the elected governing body of the Auckland Council, local democracy will be maintained through six elected local councils operating within the unitary Auckland Council. Local councils will oversee the delivery of services by Auckland Council staff and will undertake local engagement in four urban and two rural districts.
My understanding of Auckland's current problem is, how should I put this, policy inconsistency and fragmentation, and kind of "too locally focused" way of thinking in each local council. Auckland Region is more connected than ever, and policy of one district council will have direct impact on one or more other councils, and usually council act on their own rather than sitting together to find out the best solution for all.
However, one district plan, one spatial plan, and one long term council community plan will not solve this, in fact, there's a danger to make things even worse as the policy role is even more dictated. The people who understand local issues and needs are not mayors or councillors, but planners and other people who get in touch with the community every day. A single plan has the risk of more imbalanced development.
What I preferred was the super council acting as a over-guiding authority, each local council still makes its part of the district plan, but they come together under the guidance of the grand council and merge as one plan. The current proposal also does this, but it's bit over the top.
Local democratic participation is also important on local issues, so it worries me a bit that all community boards will be abolished.
For the rest of the functionalities of each level of governance, I agree with the Royal Commission.
But the arrangement and structure of the new councils is not that good. I really don't see the need for local councils to have councillors, a single (or three) councillor from the grand council is more than enough to manage local issues and represent its local council in the region wide context - 22 local councillors for current Auckland city really sounds like a bad joke to me.
In general, I'm ok with the current plan, but there's sure a large room for improvement.
If you were interested in my opinion, here it is. Maintain community boards, but with a larger area, or use the current electorate system we have. Each community returns one grand council councillor, this councillor is also the local council councillor, and should know the local constituency very well and know where the problems are. In that way we got a better consistency of policies in different areas, while the local needs and identities (like Waitakere's eco-city) can be maintained.
Oh, and by the way, I don't see reason why National will not adapt the recommendations made by the commission. In fact, I have heard that the law change proposal is already finished, its just waitting for cabinet approval, which shouldn't be a problem at all.
