Councils have been given an ultimatum — three months to put forward plans for amalgamations for the government to approve or the government will impose its own plans.
This week’s announcement seems to have been reasonably well received, possibly because it has the appearance of walking back the November proposals for a more prescriptive approach by the government.
The government says there will be clear criteria used to assess councils’ proposals.
Details of them do not seem to be available yet so it is difficult to know how, in the short time allowed, councils might gear their proposals to fit them.
Broadly, the criteria will include that the proposal is realistic and can be in place by or soon after the 2028 local body elections, they support the new planning system, provide simpler local governance, improve regional decision making, more efficient service delivery and support better infrastructure planning and investment.
Under the requirement for maintaining a local voice, the press release says the proposals will have to show communities continue to be represented fairly, local decision-making is preserved ‘‘where it matters’’, and urban and rural interests are balanced.
What that will mean in reality is hard to gauge. Communities might well argue local decision-making always matters.
In the case of the reforms, ratepayers and others in the various communities will not get the opportunity to vote specifically on the proposals affecting them.
Three months leaves little time for a comprehensive consultation on proposals with the relevant communities, particularly if the councils involved are still in the throes of reaching agreement.
The best people will be able to do is make their views known through the general election ballot box, but the government is probably gambling that local government reform will not be headlining the election campaign.
We wonder if this is the sort of localism the National Party trumpeted about in the lead-up to the last election when it was joining the braying bandwagon against Labour’s proposed water reforms.
Presumably, if the proposals do not meet this criteria to the government’s satisfaction, the government will just impose what it thinks will work.
There may be considerable support for the idea we have too many territorial local authorities and that does not necessarily always serve us well.
Getting councils to get a wriggle-on with amalgamation by waving a big stick may have some value as a catalyst for change, but being too rigid about when councils must put forward their proposals may be counter-productive.
If councils can show they are making progress, but might not quite be there in three months, it would seem silly for the government to charge in to impose its own structure.
Speedy decision-making is not always good decision-making.
Consensus can take time. Without it, there will be a risk some communities will feel left behind or poorly served.
As Local Government New Zealand says, some regions will be ready to submit proposals by August 9 but others have greater complexity that needs to be worked through and that needs to be respected.
How much any of the amalgamations might cost the hapless ratepayer is unknown along with whether the hoped for savings from economies of scale will eventuate.
In 2022 an Infrastructure Commission report found larger councils were no more efficient than their smaller counterparts in such areas as delivering road maintenance, building consents and governance overheads and support services. These activities represented more than half of total local government operating expenses.
However, in all three instances, the commission found council size, measured by the number of residents in the area, was neutral for cost efficiency.
It warned against assuming structural change would result in more efficient organisations.
We will need to know much more about this yet to be confident it will provide more than just fewer councils with the same old problems, including financial viability, which bedevil those in the existing set-up.
