Auckland Restructuring - Papering Reform Cracks - Bill 3

The current Auckland Local Government Law Reform Bill was released 10 December 2009, and had its first reading in Parliament 15 December, where it was referred to Select Ctte.This Ctte is likely to call for submissions....

This Bill is complex and large - 179 pages. It reads like a set of patches to cover over the holes that are graduallyemerging in this ship of reform. The Bill asks as many questions as it answers. I feel some sympathy for ATA - the Auckland Transition Agency - it ends up with a bucketload of more work to do - as we cruise toward abolition and relaunch November 1st 2010.

This table lists some of the provisions in the Bill - and my concerns about them. And some suggestions as to what fixes might help....
The table is not comprehensive, and if you want chapter and verse, I suggest you get a copy of the Bill yourself. But it is not - by any means - plain sailing....

Local Govt (Auckland Law Reform) Bill	My Criticism of provisions	Fixes I think are needed
ATA must amalgamate the region's LTCCPs to create a bunch of plans one for each Local Board. These plans must list the non-regulatory activities the Boards will do. It will also give Board budgets for 2011/12.	This seems sensible. But it will likely take until September 2010 before this work is done. Only then will prospective candidates have any idea of the magnitude and type of work that Local Boards will actually do. ATA's task is complicated by the fact the Local Govt Commission will only finalise Boards by end of March 2010.	Hard to know what to suggest here. Get it done as soon as possible though - I'd say by June to be of use in helping candidates decide their future. This is a good example of a repair patch needed to define - very roughly- the functions of Local Boards.
Transport Auckland established as a "non-standard" CCO. Exempt from many LGA provisions. Potential for its Board to be appointed by Ministers of Transport & Local Government. No mention about who/how it will be funded.	This is -in effect - a Crown controlled organisation. (See my blog about this a couple of entries ago). Would the Crown deny itself powers to control SOE's or other Authorities it owns? Would Govt fail to state in legislation the rules for SOEs to negotiate with Govt in regard to activities, objectives & budgets? I don't think so. Most SOE budgets are heavily tagged. Not so for Auckland Transport....	Government needs to learn from the 2004 transport and local govt reforms for Auckland. This was when ARTA was established to run Auckland public transport and other services. The checks and balances in place - about funding, activities, objectives - were decided in partnership with ARC. This model worked well for Auckland. It should be replicated for Transport Auckland.
Watercare will NOT do stormwater, and Auckland Council will NOT be able to change Watercare's SOI until 2012.	There are no provisions in the Bill for how Watercare will charge for water and wastewater services. Extraordinarily, it seems likely that Watercare will charge ratepayers for water services in a Bill separate from their rates bill. What a waste of a reform@! Also, appears to be no public process whereby transition in water/wastewater charges occurs. Apparently Auckland Council will be able to fire the Board. Now there's a blunt governance tool!	Auckland Council needs to be able to govern Watercare through its SOI immediately. Total nonsense otherwise. It also seems a nonsense that stormwater infrastructure and its use and management is to be separated from water and wastewater. Backward. Some sort of transition duty should be required as wastewater charges move from Uniform Charges to volumetric charges. These are major policy and public interest issues. Policy control should come via SOI.
Whole bunch of CCO's to be established by the ATA - many before the end of October 31st. Boards may be appointed also. Boards to appoint their own Chairs!	What Govt SOE or Authority exists where the Minister has NOT appointed the Board Chair? Why should Auckland Council not have the power to appoint the Chairs of CCOs it is supposed to control? This is crazy.	What is good for the goose, should be good for the gander. This Bill demonstrates a real failure on the part of Government to understand the need for independent local government. Is it so afraid of failure? Has it so little confidence in these reforms?
Mana Whenua and Maori Statutory Board set up with 9 members, that can appoint 2 people to Auckland Council Ctte dealing with resource management decisions. Option to sit on other cttes.	This is the fallback option instead of maori seats. I understand this option is likely to be unwieldy and expensive. However does have the benefit of ensuring the right mana whenua people serve on the Auckland Council cttes. That voice will be there.	Suggest a costs & benefits assessment is done for this option vv Maori seat option. Need to be better informed about this.
Auckland Council will be required to prepare a comprehensive Spatial Plan - with a lot of detail. Intended to provide a 20-30 year direction for Auckland. This will replace the Growth Strategy.	This sort of specific plan has long been needed. But this provision "drips with insincerity". It has no relationship with any of the other implementation plans. No relationshipwith Regional Policy Statement, District Plans, Regional Transport Strategy... In short, just another time-consuming strategy that won't stand a chance of getting implemented.	In my view, the Spatial Plan is an opportunity to do something good for Auckland planning, and its implementation. But Govt needs to take it seriously, for the Spatial Plan to be taken seriously by Auckland Council. The Spatial Plan lacks credibility when there is no obvious connection between it, and Auckland Council planning, and the infrastructure projects needed from Watercare and Auckland Transport....
Rating. A revaluation of the whole region is to be completed by 1 July 2010. ALL rates are to be based on capital value. Auckland Council must set a transition rate for each rating unit for 2011/12.	This is a doozy of a provision. For example, North Shore rates are based on Land Value (Capital Value includes Land Value PLUS improvements value.) This means there will be BIG losers,and BIG winners in this transition. Even a revaluation using the same rating system causes huge upheaval. Let alone changing the basis of rating itself@!	While the Bill provides for Auckland Council having a 3 year transition period - the scale of change will be very large for some rating units - too large to be safely absorbed across 3 years. I think work is required - ahead of Select Ctte - s0 there is better info about the impact of this change. Also, I think the rating Bill should include water as well as rates.
ATA "Planning Document". This is an interesting new planning document required of ATA (intro'd above). It must deal with initial allocation of decision-making responsibility between council and ALL Boards.	A necessary document. This needs to be planned for. But there are so many things that need to be planned for,for each Local Board: Building; staff requirement; budget; divisions... and think of this: that Waitakere Local Board is as big as Waitakere City Council...! Again- this won't be ready till Sept 2010, almost after the date candidates need to declare their hands...	When you look at this one - the sheer scale of it - you wonder about the sense of forcingall this to be done by Oct 31 next year. Maybe a better option would be to legislate for the current arrangements to run for another year - or maybe 6 months. Anything to avoid the patched reform ship from sinking through having too many unfixed holes....

Auckland Governance Reorganisation - How will it unfold?

We had a workshop at ARC this week to consider the ARC's submission in regard to the Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill 2009 - which is still a Bill. (As opposed to Local Government (Tamaki Makaurau Reorganisation) Act - which was forced through under urgency a couple of weeks ago.)

I can't say what will be in ARC's submission, because it's not finalised and not public yet. But out of the discussion I was able to tease a few glimmers of understanding as to what has to happen over the next wee while.

Submitters and potential submitters have already been informally advised by Government officials that: "submissions should stick to what's in the Bill. Don't use your submission to raise broader issues. Time is limited. Not here to canvass the broader issues....."

Much of ARC's discussion was about Community Boards. What would they do? What powers would they have? What could legislation say? What about the fact that Community Boards will be very different: you've got established ones (like Devonport), and you might have 3 in Rodney when its District Council is abolished - but they haven't existed there before....

The Bill, and Local Government (Tamaki Makaurau Reorganisation) Act - enacted under urgency a couple of weeks ago - provides some detail as to how Auckland Council itself will be established. The transition process for that Council and so on.

What emerged in our discussion is that the Community Boards (20 - 30) are actually a part of Auckland Council. They may be separate, but they are a part of Auckland Council.

If that definition is accepted - and I'm sure it has to be - there needs to be a transition plan for each and every one of those 20-30 community boards, and it has to be well underway by 1st November next year. Otherwise there is the prospect in Rodney (and many other parts of Auckland), of Community Boards being elected, but having nowhere to meet, and little in the way of administrative backup on the ground locally.

You may appreciate that I get some peace fishing from time to time. This man's kingfish caught my eye at the Sculpture on Takapuna Point exhibition. Bigger than mine...

So. With that in mind, how might the next year pan out? Here's a possible timetable:

1) Submissions to Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill 2009 will be required by 26th June. Many of these will relate to Community Boards. However, it seems unlikely, if not impossible, for the Bill to prescribe exactly what Community Boards can and cannot do. For a start they are all different - and some don't even exist at the moment. There will be temptation for Government to run with the statutory arrangements that exist now - ie that Councils have the power to delegate functions and responsibilities to Community Boards. There will be submissions calling for some sort of generic process, whereby Auckland Council must engage with Community Boards, and bulk fund them. This should not be a blank cheque. So there will be pressure for criteria to be established in legislation, which must be met by a Community Board, before it can expect funding. There will be pressure for there to be a list of the sorts of activities that Community Boards (meeting the criteria) can expect to be responsible for, and funded for. This funding formula could change over time.

2) Government will need to decide how to provide for Community Boards in the legislation, based on submissions and its own programme, and bring the Bill into law sometime in September. It is bound to be some sort of generic and empowering legislation, which requires Auckland Council to formally engage with and fund Community Boards. It is likely that this Act will also state how many Community Boards there are, and broadly where they are, and how many members each would have, but without stating their exact boundaries. That comes later.

3) I believe it will then be down to the Transition Agency to design the Transition and Establishment plan for each of those Community Boards. It seems there will be 20 to 30 of them. As I have noted, they are all different from each other. There is not a generic Community Board. It is not a case of "one size fits all". So what might an establishment plan look like for a Rodney Community Board? Just guessing here:

3.1) Physical infrastructure requirement: Building (with rooms for meeting, admin staff, service delivery staff offices, public point of contact); telephone systems; computer systems and backup with appropriate links to central computer system at Auckland Council; appropriate carparking - public and staff.
3.2) Staff requirement: Office Manager appointed; basic admin staff; local projects engineer; public liaison person.
3.3) Basic transition plan and startup resources: Print; preliminary meeting schedule; initial delegations; decision time table (first 6 months say); letterhead; branding
3.4) Budget: To cover the above, salaries and office running costs.

That's the what - in outline - and then there's the when. Much of the above will need to be in place well before 1st November 2010, so Community Board members hit the ground running, and slot into their roles and responsibilities.

4) The Local Government Commission must finalise boundaries for Community Boards "no later than 1st March 2010". So, if the above Bill slows down going through Parliament, that will mean the LGC gets a late start. Potential for problems there. Getting the LGC to define boundaries for just a few community Boards is a challenge - let along 30!

5) 2010 will see the implementation of the Establishment and Transition Plans designed by the Transition Agency. One for the Auckland Council, and 20-30 Plans (as estimated above) for the Community Boards. These will need to be in place for 1st November 2010. So that elected members can smoothly do their jobs.

6) Meanwhile, in 2010, right up to October 31st 2010, all of the existing councils and community boards have to keep functioning and delivering services. During this overlap period there will be substantial duplication of staffing. That will be inevitable with this scale of reorganisation.

With this in mind, I believe there is every reason for the Transition Agency to expect public input and interest in key decisions like: where the community board building is located; how it addresses the local community; and so on.

To leave all this detail about such significant local government institutions, with such an important function, to five members of an unaccountable Transition Agency is inappropriate.

However Community Boards are at the sharp end of this reorganisation.
It's where it's impact will be felt most keenly.
It has to be right, or it's not worth doing.