She asks to see the legal advice behind that warning, which her council commissioned and ratepayers paid for. She is refused.
According to MP Stuart Smith, this actually happened at Wellington City Council. He opened the first-reading debate on his Local Government (Management of Local Authorities) Amendment Bill with the example.
This week I lodged the Initiative’s submission supporting the Bill.
The current problem is that elected members are accountable for what their councils do but the Local Government Act does not expressly make council management subject to their direction and supervision.
Too often, information is withheld from councillors on the grounds that it is 'operational’ or ‘commercially sensitive’. Alternatively, it is buried in dense reports with inadequate time for digestion and discussion. Absurdly, councillors around the country have resorted to official information requests to prise information from their own councils.
The Bill would make it clear that the chief executive is subject to direction and supervision of the elected council. It would also allow councillors to seek advice from outside their own bureaucracy.
These are hardly radical ideas. A company board, school board or charitable trust would take them for granted.
The Initiative’s submission supports the Bill while proposing amendments to make sure it has effect in practice.
While elected members should govern the council, decisions on individual consents and enforcement should remain with independent decisionmakers. The ability to commission external advice should be subject to a policy and a budget so it is not treated as a blank cheque. Mechanisms are also needed for when councillor information requests are declined (in full or in part) or are not responded to in a timely manner.
The Bill has received broad political support. It should be a first step towards giving elected representatives greater ability to govern their councils and represent their communities effectively.
Local election turnout last year was a miserable 39 percent. A system in which the people you elect cannot get straight answers from the organisations they supposedly govern gives voters one more reason to stay home.
The current problem is that elected members are accountable for what their councils do but the Local Government Act does not expressly make council management subject to their direction and supervision.
Too often, information is withheld from councillors on the grounds that it is 'operational’ or ‘commercially sensitive’. Alternatively, it is buried in dense reports with inadequate time for digestion and discussion. Absurdly, councillors around the country have resorted to official information requests to prise information from their own councils.
The Bill would make it clear that the chief executive is subject to direction and supervision of the elected council. It would also allow councillors to seek advice from outside their own bureaucracy.
These are hardly radical ideas. A company board, school board or charitable trust would take them for granted.
The Initiative’s submission supports the Bill while proposing amendments to make sure it has effect in practice.
While elected members should govern the council, decisions on individual consents and enforcement should remain with independent decisionmakers. The ability to commission external advice should be subject to a policy and a budget so it is not treated as a blank cheque. Mechanisms are also needed for when councillor information requests are declined (in full or in part) or are not responded to in a timely manner.
The Bill has received broad political support. It should be a first step towards giving elected representatives greater ability to govern their councils and represent their communities effectively.
Local election turnout last year was a miserable 39 percent. A system in which the people you elect cannot get straight answers from the organisations they supposedly govern gives voters one more reason to stay home.
The Initiative’s submission on the Local Government (Management of Local Authorities) Amendment Bill can be found here.
Nick is a Senior Fellow at The New Zealand Initiative, focusing on local government, resource management, and economic policy. This article was first published HERE
5 comments:
I'd be confident that it is not the elected but the unelected and overpaid functionaries that make the rules, destroy the good and promote the bad.....nearly every city sees strange, useless and terrible decisions made that get paid for out of ratepayers pockets for no real gain.
I have first hand experience of the difficulty of getting information out of my Nelson council. I tried to investigate the spending of $56,000 on a "Maori artwork Installation" at our local community reserve. This was part of a project to expand the reserve. The decision to include the artwork was done by unelected NCC staff without the knowledge of any of the elected mambers including the mayor Nick Smith. I was refused permission to view both the Resource Consent and the Maori "Cultural Impact Assessment" (CIA) from Nagti Tama, a locl iwi. Even councillors have difficulty viewing these documents, especially the CIA (due to causing "serious offense to tikanga Maori"). Utter bullshit!
As a once upon a time councillor , I sat around a table with some very astute fellow councillors.
Staff were aware they would be challenged on presented papers.
We made good decisions.
NZ now has councillors there because of a 'name' or a 'job. Many have no idea how business operates.
People with ideal backgrounds no longer stand .
We currently have systems which have the lunatics in charge of the asylum - how did this happen and who was responsible?
Wiith a deadful voter turnout of 39% local body democracy is dead in this country since a majority of voters have clearly stated that they don't care who runs their towns and cities.
Add to that the appalling lack of talent demonstrated by too many councillors and you get the ignorant being handed the purse strings by the politically motivated hard core minority.
And what do you get? Wellington, and the Greens who have mismanaged the city for decades.
Accordingly, there's a good case for abolishing elections and appointing Commissioners to govern all our local bodies. Those Commisioners would have the authority to engage private sector facilities management companies to deliver a range of core services defined by statute. Rates would only be permitted to fund those servivces.
And guess what. Most residents would not even notice the change.
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