NZ Local Government February 1702

NZ LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE VOL 54 • FEBRUARY 2017 • $8.95

The year ahead

ROADMAP 2017

February

p14

August November

BREAKING NEW GROUND

KAIKOURA TRANSPORT NETWORK

Three ICT projects: the what, why and how p21

Modelling tool helps quickly identify options after the Kaikoura earthquake p26

IN THE PIPELINE

SURVEY TECHNOLOGY

Water assets project could save councils millions of dollars p30

Discovery Marine and the Rotorua Te Arawa Lakes Programme p40

IN THIS ISSUE NZ LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE

CONTENTS P21 IN THIS ISSUE REGULARS 4 Editor’s Letter 6 In Brief 12 Products & Services 13 Events 47 LGNZ

COLUMNISTS

P13

42 M ichelle Hewitt: On Building Control Authorities 43 Elizabeth Hughes: On Local Government 101 44 Frana Divich: On Legal Issues 45 Peter Silcock: From Civil Contractors New Zealand 46 Lawrence Yule: From LGNZ

REPORTS

P14 ON THE COVER. Roadmap 2017: What to expect in the year ahead. See page p14.

14 R OADMAP 2017 What to expect in the year ahead 18 2 016 ALGIM ANNUAL CONFERENCE Robotic earthworms, stolen bacon & printed houses 21 B REAKING NEW GROUND The how, what and why behind three ICT projects celebrated at the 2016 Annual ALGIM Awards

P38

24 C EMETERY MANAGEMENT Councils must perform a delicate balancing act to meet changing demands 26 K AIKOURA TRANSPORT NETWORK Modelling tool helps quickly identify options for surfacing and paving work on an alternate route after the Kaikoura earthquake 28 T HE TENDER TRAP How councils and suppliers can improve their procurement practices 30 IN THE PIPELINE Water assets project has potential to save councils millions of dollars 32 FITNESS FOR PURPOSE New technologies are changing the way aquatic and recreation facilities do business 34 E MERGENCY ALERTS Last year’s November 14 earthquakes raised criticisms of Civil Defence processes. The pros and cons of sirens and texting 40 T ECHNICAL BRIEFING Developments in survey technology and its application to freshwater environments: Discovery Marine and the Rotorua Te Arawa Lakes Programme

SPECIAL FEATURES 36 Innovations in freshwater management 38 Innovations in placemaking

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EDITOR’S LETTER NZ LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE

PUBLISHER Contrafed Publishing Co. Ltd, Suite 2.1, 93 Dominion Rd, Mount Eden, Auckland 1024 PO Box 112 357, Penrose, Auckland 1642 Phone: 09 636 5715, Fax: 09 636 5716 www.localgovernmentmag.co.nz

Here’s to blazing flamboyancy There’s a distinctively forward-thinking theme to this issue. Maybe that’s because it’s a new year and the fresh positivism engendered by a summer holiday still hovers in the air. Over the break I had a chance to absorb some of the ideas by futurist Thomas Frey whose new book I bought at the ALGIM conference late last year. So I did complete some worthy, and very interesting, snippets of reading.

These fitted in among other far less work-like activities such as kayaking, jigsaws, bar-b-ques and knife-throwing (a family competition at which I discovered I am random at best).

Be that as it may, this issue is stuffed with local government plans for 2017, Thomas Frey’s thoughts on the future and a major water assets project that could save millions of dollars. There’s even a look at how councilowned cemeteries are changing with the times.

With all that going on, I was surprised to start the working year with an email from the Taxpayers’ Union focusing on former Wellington mayor Celia Wade-Brown’s request for a small tattoo of a gecko as her leaving present.

(Council denied her request and staff did an informal whip-round to pay for it themselves.)

As with so many issues in our age of soundbite controversies, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly where any public outrage may lie.

Is it that a public servant – in this case one who served for six years as mayor – should have any leaving present at all?

Or is it the dollar value attached to this particular leaving present? In this case, a ballpark figure for such a tattoo would be in the hundreds of dollars.

Or is it, as I suspect, the nature of the gift? Is the sub-text that councils should remain in the gold watch era of present giving? That it’s ok for a retiring mayor to get something traditional and discreet – a ‘safe’ gift, as it were. But it’s

not ok for them to be given something different.

Let alone, horror, a piece of body art?

And if that’s the case, what does that say, once again, about how councils are viewed?

If we truly want public sector organisations to change, to be more forward-thinking, to move with the times and embrace the future, why not give them a chance to be just a tiny bit different? Or do we really want them stuck in the 1970s with walkshorts, pull-up grey socks and gold watches?

In my experience, mayors come in two fragrances: careful grey and blazing flamboyant. We need both types.

So, this year, let’s argue about the important stuff. There’s plenty to choose from. Like court cases over corruption. Or the amount of time that some councillors actually spend doing their job. Or that, according to another recent email from the Taxpayers’ Union, only seven percent of council-owned art is on display for the public to enjoy.

Let’s look at how on earth councils are going to be able to pay for the infrastructure that will mean we still have fresh water when we turn on our taps, can flush the loo and get to work on roads without too many potholes.

Better still, let’s encourage councils to think about how we could leapfrog old approaches altogether. What will it mean when people can print their own houses, get propelled down driverless highways and live in “waterless” cities?

That’s the kind of stuff that will send us all hurtling into the future. And then we won’t get at all surprised if a mayor chooses a tattoo on their ankle rather than a gold watch as a small memento of their many years of service.

Ruth Le Pla, editor, ruth@localgovernmentmag.co.nz

GENERAL MANAGER Kevin Lawrence DDI: 09 636 5710 Mobile: 021 512 800 kevin@contrafed.co.nz EDITOR Ruth Le Pla Mobile: 021 266 3978 ruth@localgovernmentmag.co.nz SALES CONSULTANT Charles Fairbairn DDI: 09 636 5724 Mobile: 021 411 890 charles@contrafed.co.nz CONTRIBUTORS Lesley Courtney, Frana Divich, Michelle Hewitt, Elizabeth Hughes, Channa Jayasinha, Gary Lewis, Patricia Moore, John Pfahlert, Greg Preston, Peter Silcock, Kevin Smith, Declan Stubbing, Alan Titchall, Jimmy Van Der Pauw, Lawrence Yule, Javier Zaya ADMINISTRATION/SUBSCRIPTIONS admin@contrafed.co.nz DDI: 09 636 5715 PRODUCTION Design: Jonathan Whittaker studio@contrafed.co.nz Printing: PMP MAXUM CONTRIBUTIONS WELCOME Please contact the editor before sending them in. Articles in Local Government Magazine are copyright and may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the permission of the publisher.

DISCLAIMER Local Government Magazine is an independent publication owned and produced by Contrafed Publishing.

The views expressed in the magazine are not necessarily those of any of its shareholding organisations.

www.linkedin.com/nzlocalgovernmentmag @nzlgmagazine ISSN 0028-8403

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New planning tool for councils An online system providing councils with access to historical bird’s eye view imagery of areas right across the country has just been launched.

RetroLens.nz is a historical image resource which holds hundreds of thousands of aerial images taken between 1936 and 2005.

The project was developed by the Local Government Geospatial Alliance (LGGA), a group represented by the geospatial section of New Zealand’s local authorities, with images provided by Land Information New Zealand (LINZ).

The system provides a shared resource for councils to aid in future planning, as well as economic and environmental decision-making. The images are also freely accessible to the public.

Panellists please Auckland Council is looking for new members on its five demographic advisory panels. Eight positions are now available on the Disability Advisory Panel, Seniors Advisory Panel, Ethnic Peoples Advisory Panel and Pacific Peoples Advisory Panel. There are also two Maori member positions available on the Rainbow Communities Advisory Panel.

Applications close on February 9. More information and an online application form are on aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/advisorypanels

The project is ongoing, with 150,000 images currently available on the system. By the time it’s complete in 2021, that number is expected to increase to 500,000.

Iain Campion, data and GIS team leader Environment Canterbury, heads up the project. Key partners include: Glen Clarkin, geospatial team leader Bay of Plenty Regional Council; Hellen Munro, GIS team leader Hawke’s Bay Regional Council; and Gill Lawrence, spatial information manager Waikato Regional Council.

Gill notes that until recently it was frequently a long and difficult process to find historic images that councils needed to support their work.

Iain says that by studying historical images councils can see changes in

Call for entries The Institute of Public Administration New Zealand (IPANZ) is calling for public sector organisations to enter projects in the Deloitte IPANZ Public Sector Excellence Awards 2017.

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coastal areas and land use. “We can identify where hazardous substances have once been used or stored and identify special features, including geothermal vegetation and archaeological sites. On top of this, the system can be used as a resource for cultural research.”

Liz Tupuhi, Waikato Regional Council’s land and soil scientist, sees all

sorts of opportunities from a science point of view. “Through the images we can see stream channels and understand whether today’s drain is yesterday’s meandering stream. We can see erosion scars and trace these through the years. We can see forest fragments and perhaps even work backwards to establish what they might have been."

Rolleston 1995 / 2000 / 2015.

How Kiwis prefer to deal with government New Zealanders are more willing to interact digitally with government – both local and central – than citizens in other nations, according to a fivenation survey by international IT company Unisys.

The study of over 5000 people in New Zealand, Australia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore probed how people feel about the way their governments interact with them. Key findings include: • New Zealand and the Philippines recorded the highest level of support (63 percent) for common citizen data – such as an address, birth date or tax number – being shared between government agencies;

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• New Zealand is the only country of the five surveyed where citizens prefer interaction online (39 percent) over by phone (31 percent) or in-person (28 percent); and • Speed is not seen as a major benefit. Kiwis see 24 / 7 availability as the top plus-point for interacting with government online.

Unisys is considering drilling down into specific types of interactions with government in its 2017 survey to see if there are any differences in attitude towards, for example, querying a rates assessment, renewing a car registration or applying for child support.

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FEBRUARY 2017 LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE

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IN BRIEF ON THE MOVE Dunedin City Council mayor Dave Cull takes over from former Horowhenua District Council mayor Brendan Duffy as vice president of LGNZ. Hastings District Council mayor Lawrence Yule remains president. The new line-up for LGNZ’s national council also includes the following Dave Cull mayors: Phil Goff (Auckland Council); Justin Lester (Wellington City Council); Rachel Reese (Nelson City Council); Brian Hanna (Waitomo District Council); Jan Barnes (Matamata-Piako District Council); John Carter (Far North District Council); Don Cameron (Ruapehu District Council); Wayne Guppy (Upper Hutt City Council); Richard Kempthorne (Tasman District Council); and Tracy Hicks (Gore District Council). Also on the council are: Doug Leeder (chair, Bay of Plenty Regional Council); Penny Hulse (councillor, Auckland Council) and Stuart Crosby (councillor, Bay of Plenty Regional Council).

John Pullar takes over from Bill Clark as chair of the Kopeopeo Canal Community Liaison Group. Bill tendered his resignation after having been elected to the Bay of Plenty Regional Council at last year’s local body elections.

New Zealand Post Group in April. He also chairs Antarctica NZ, Hurricanes GP, the Major Events Investment Panel, Tait New Zealand and the Wellington Gateway Partnership.

John Seward joins engineering and design firm Parsons Brinckerhoff as geotechnics and tunnels team manager, New Zealand. He is based in Auckland.

One-time council chief executive Andrew Caseley is the new CE at the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA). James Hay had earlier been tipped to take over from retiring CE Mike Underhill but has been unable to take up the role due to personal Andrew Caseley circumstances.

Andrew was previously chief executive officer of the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council for 13 years. For the past 10 years he worked for engineering and environmental consultancy MWH. Daniel Murray and Tim Ensor join Tonkin + Taylor’s Christchurch office. The pair arrive as a ready-made senior planning and resource management team, having worked together for the past eight years. Both have a strong background in managing large, complex projects.

Auckland Council and the government appoint Brian Roche as the establishment chair of City Rail Link (CRL). He is now helping appoint four more directors to CRL. Brian will step down from his role as group CE of

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Better value for money from council spend on roading For the 10 years before 2012 the cost of road maintenance went up beyond the rate of inflation – and today still consumes up to 60 percent of council budgets. The Road Efficiency Group (REG), a joint project between local government and the NZ Transport Agency, has been working on a new approach to achieve savings and efficiencies, both nationally and within councils. The One Network Road Classification (ONRC) is now being implemented.

The group argues that if councils want to maximise value-for-money, they need to support their infrastructure staff and ensure that the right questions are asked and answered: How does your council know that your roads are serving your people’s needs? Are they serving your community’s economic needs and supporting economic growth? Which roads need to be really well maintained and which can be a bit rough? Is your council getting value for money? Where is the evidence? And how well do your roads connect with other networks, including the national network?

LGNZ chief executive Malcolm Alexander notes that, in the past, most councils have focused on the quality of roads.

“But what if your beautifully-maintained, well-formed thoroughfare doesn’t go anywhere much and is hardly used? You’ve spent a lot of money – which could go on other council priorities – on gold-plated taps when aluminium will do. On the other hand, what if there’s a change in population or economic activity, and suddenly an old road nobody used is vitally important to the local economy?”

He says there needs to be a shift from thinking of roads as roads, to thinking of them as people and product carriers.

“We also need to join up the road network... New Zealand’s roads grew up as needed, built by local authorities at a time when communication could be a challenge. As a result, there can be major differences in the quality of roads across local authority boundaries.”

The REG notes that council infrastructure managers are now preparing business cases for their Regional Land Transport Plans which are due for submission this year and which should take the new approach. These plans need to be customer-focused, evidence-based and reflect the One Network Road Classification.

“Councillors and executives need to check in with their managers, ask the questions above, and see whether they need extra resource to get the job done,” says Malcolm.

Looking forward, new approaches to procurement and collaborative alliances between councils are being designed and actioned. There are real gains to be made in road maintenance, not just financial, but also through knowledge sharing, professional development and peer support for road asset staff. This can be a great way to retain high quality employees in rural areas.

Malcolm says the customer-centric model of service delivery will probably be rolled out to all infrastructure services in future. “It’s a more agile way of managing infrastructure and creates a lot of opportunities for cost savings, which councils can use to better serve their communities.”

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IN BRIEF DATES FOR YOUR DIARY FEBRUARY 13 – 14 2017 Business Intelligence Summit.

Grand Millennium Auckland, Auckland bit.ly/CONFERENZ_BusIntel

16 – 17 Land Development Engineering Forum.

Mercure Hotel, Wellington bit.ly/IPWEA_LandDevEngForum

14 Political Decision Making. LGNZ LGNZ Offices, Lambton Quay, Wellington www.lgnz.co.nz

21 – 22 2017 Safety 360.

Ellerslie Events Centre, Auckland www.conferenz.co.nz/events/2017-safety-360

15 Resource Management Act – How It Really Works. LGNZ LGNZ Offices, Lambton Quay, Wellington www.lgnz.co.nz

22 – 23 RIMS Forum.

Waipuna Hotel & Conference Centre, Auckland bit.ly/IPWEA_RIMSforum

16 Local Government Infrastructure Management Forum.

Rydges Wellington, Wellington bit.ly/IPWEA_LG-InfrastructureMgmt

27 – 28 Civic Assurance Strategic Finance Forum 2017.

Grand Millennium Auckland, Auckland bit.ly/SOLGM_CivicAssurance

16 – 17 JLT Risk Management Forum 2017.

Macs Function Centre, Wellington bit.ly/SOLGM_RiskManagement

28 Presentation Skills.

LGNZ Offices, Lambton Quay, Wellington www.lgnz.co.nz

21 – 22 Freshwater Management & Infrastructure.

Te Papa, Wellington bit.ly/CONFERENZ_FreshwaterMgmt 24 SOLGM’s Managing Performance Masterclass.

AREA, Wellington bit.ly/SOLGM_ManagingPerformanceMasterClass 28 Media Training for Modern Leaders. LGNZ LGNZ Offices, Lambton Quay, Wellington www.lgnz.co.nz 28 2017 Government and Technology Conference.

Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington bit.ly/CONFERENZ_GovtTechConf MARCH 4 – 12 Parks Week. www.parks-week.org 6 – 8 SOLGM Emerging Leaders Development Programme.

Hotel Coachman, Palmerston North bit.ly/SOLGM_EmergingLeaders 8 Political Decision Making. LGNZ Christchurch City Council www.lgnz.co.nz

APRIL 5 Media Training for Modern Leaders. LGNZ Palmerston North City Council, Palmerston North www.lgnz.co.nz 11 Media Training for Modern Leaders. LGNZ Matamata-Piako District Council www.lgnz.co.nz 12 SOLGM Executive Leaders Masterclass.

Langham Hotel, Auckland bit.ly/SOLGM_ExecLeadersMasterclass 12 Chief Executives Forum.

Langham Hotel, Auckland bit.ly/SOLGM_CEsForum 12 2017 SOLGM Annual Gala Dinner.

Langham Hotel, Auckland bit.ly/SOLGM_AnnualDinner 28 SOLGM Community Facilities Event.

Christchurch bit.ly/SOLGM_CommunityFacilities

8 The LG Executive Leaders Programme.

TBA, Wellington bit.ly/LGExecLeaders

MAY 3 – 4 Procurement Course.

Christchurch bit.ly/SOLGM_ProcurementCourse

13 – 17 Australasian Management Challenge – NZ leg.

Silverstream Retreat, Upper Hutt bit.ly/SOLGM_AusMgmtChallenge

3 – 5 Water New Zealand’s Stormwater Conference 2017.

Pullman Hotel, Auckland stormwaterconference.org.nz

14 Political Decision Making. LGNZ Dunedin City Council www.lgnz.co.nz

4 2017 NZ CEO Summit.

Langham Hotel, Auckland www.conferenz.co.nz/events/2017-nz-ceo-summit

15 2017 New Zealand CFO Summit & Awards.

SKYCITY Convention Centre, Auckland bit.ly/CONFERENZ_CFOSummit

11 – 12 Professional Administrators Forum.

Grand Millennium Auckland, Auckland bit.ly/SOLGM_ProfAdmin

15 – 16 3rd International Street Lighting and Smart Controls Conference.

Brisbane Convention and Entertainment Centre bit.ly/IPWEA_StreetLightingConference

17 – 18 Green Pavlova: NZRA’s Parks and Open Spaces Conference.

Westpac Stadium, Wellington bit.ly/NZRA_GreenPavlova

15 – 16 Water New Zealand Modelling and Digital Water Groups’ Symposium.

Heritage Hotel, Auckland www.waternz.org.nz/ModellingDigitalSymposium 16 A Practical Guide to Public Consultation. LGNZ LGNZ Offices, Lambton Quay, Wellington www.lgnz.co.nz

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22 – 23 ALGIM Autumn Conference: GIS and Information Management / Records.

James Cook Grand Chancellor Hotel, Wellington www.algim.org.nz/algim-events

Would you like us to include your event in this calendar?

Please email details to ruth@localgovernmentmag.co.nz

Reminder: Management Challenge February 10 is the final day for New Zealand council teams to register for the 2017 Management Challenge. Teams play off against each other from March 13 to 17 across a number of fiendish challenges (we know: we’ve been there in previous years and seen what they have to do). The winners head across the Tasman to take on Aussie teams later in the year. More information: bit.ly/SOLGM_AusMgmtChallenge

Letter to the editor

The recent cabinet reshuffle sees the appointment of Anne Tolley to the post of Minister of Local Government. She as is the sixth appointee to this post in and ence influ huge many years! Given the , lives daily our in cils significance of coun nt rnme gove ral let’s hope now that cent will provide greater stability and will or’s fully support Ms Tolley to lift the sect ce rman perfo al patchy and often dism

Councillor Awanui Black passes away Toi Moana Bay of Plenty Regional Council’s chair, councillors and staff have expressed their sadness at the passing of councillor Awanui Black at the end of last year.

He had just returned to council for his second term as mauao constituency councillor. In his first term councillor Black chaired komiti Maori, which set the direction for council’s legislative obligations to Maori across the region.

CE Mary-Anne Macleod said councillor Black was a highly respected leader, orator and was part of treaty negotiations in the Tauranga Moana area for his iwi.

He was instrumental in instilling tikanga

record.

Larry Mitchell, Puhoi Councillor Awanui Black.

Maori and te reo at the council and was behind the council’s adoption of its Maori name, Toi Moana.

Mary-Anne said councillor Black has been described by staff that worked with him and knew him as a friend, colleague, mentor, guide and a staunch advocate of te reo me nga tikanga Maori and education.

Coastal slip Chair of the Coastal Restoration Trust of New Zealand Greg Bennett points out that the two top photos published on page 31 of our December issue were in fact at Wainui Beach, Gisborne, not Haumoana Beach as our caption stated. Sorry, Greg.

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PRODUCTS & SERVICES Community protection unit Public sector specialist firm Civica has launched a dedicated business unit offering software and services for organisations involved in community protection across Australia and New Zealand.

The unit includes systems for core regulatory and enforcement functions from environmental health, trading standards and licensing, to anti-social behaviour and waste management. The new unit will be based in Melbourne.

Career pathway maps Skills Active Aotearoa has produced a new set of career pathway maps for people working in its key industries including community and outdoor recreation. The maps are designed to help school leavers, and others considering sport and recreation careers, to visualise their progress through such industries.

The posters illustrate in a crisp colourful style, how to get started, where to go and the stepping stones along the way. Electronic versions of the posters are available from www.skillsactive.org.nz

Driver training A new online fleet driver training plan is now available from DT Driver Training. The company says around a third of all accidents involve people who drive for work.

The fleet plan offers drivers training and resources that will help them meet the new driver compliance requirements of the Health & Safety at Work Act. Health and safety managers will be able to train, upskill and monitor driver training and produce reports for compliance.

The training offered improves driver knowledge, skills and competency which in turn reduces injuries, accidents, business costs and downtime. Employers can use the plan to pre-test driver applicants and volunteers.

Automated outbound mail system Australia-based mailing solution provider Bing has introduced an automated outbound mail system to the New Zealand market.

EasyPost Mailroom allows council staff to send their mail directly from their computers, saving money and time compared with manual processing methods.

The EasyPost system acts as a ‘virtual’ printer driver. Council staff can simply ‘print’ their documents to the ‘mailroom’ regardless of delivery method – fax, post, email or SMS. Bing launched the new service to New Zealand at the ALGIM conference in Auckland at the end of last year. Multiple councils are already using Bing’s services in Australia including the City of Sydney and the City of Casey.

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EVENTS AT ALGIM’S ANNUAL CONFERENCE IN AUCKLAND

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1. Matt Hanrahan (Enghouse Interactive) & Matt Lane (Wellington City Council).

2. Tony K (TonyK.NZ), Billy Michels (ALGIM and Waikato Regional Council) & Jolanda Simon (Waimakariri District Council).

3. James Longley & Craig Brannigan (both from BEarena).

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4. Damian Stefadouros (Rotorua Lakes Council) & Scott Mainwaring (Konica Minolta).

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5. Scott Campbell (Eagle Technology) & Mike Lamb (Hamilton City Council).

6. Carol Cottam, Dennis Pram (both from Northland Regional Council) & Anthony Sidwell (Datacom Solutions).

7. ManageEngine ‘zoo talk’.

8. Joy Kopa (Tararua District Council) & Jason Baynham (Nimble Storage).

9. Sue Davidson & Gaye Batty (both from New Plymouth District Council).

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ROADMAP

February New dog control legislation introduced in parliament OAG publishes Electricity Distribution Businesses – Managing Critical Infrastructure Local Government Commission invites alternative applications on West Coast reorganisation

1 Last day for entering SOLGM Local Government Excellence Awards and applying for Leadership Scholarships and Overseas Manager Exchanges

10 Final day for council teams to register for the 2017 Management Challenge

March Assessments of first four councils released under the Local Government Excellence Programme Local Government and Environment Select Committee reports back to Parliament on the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2)

4 – 12 Parks Week. Organised by the New Zealand Recreation Association & Parks and Leisure Australia

13 – 17 New Zealand leg of the 2017 Australasian Management Challenge, Lower Hutt Late March: Inquiry into 2016 Havelock North campylobacter outbreak to report back to government

(March / April) OAG releases Local government: Results of the 2015/16 audits (March / April) Auditor training for 2018-28 long-term planning round (March / April) OAG consults on, and releases, 2018-28 long-term plan fee information

ROADMAP 2017 What to expect in the year ahead Welcome to another year in local government. This one looks set to be every bit as dynamic as the last, writes Ruth Le Pla.

W

here to start with such a big topic? Plunging in with some of the big-picture items first, we’ve yet again got a new Minister and an Associate Minister of Local Government – this time in the form of ministers Anne Tolley and Jacqui Dean respectively. So another round of getting-to-know-you sessions in the name of relationship-building must start anew.

The sector is also soon likely to get some resolution to the controversial and much-debated Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2) which, according to its many

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detractors, in its original form stood to swipe away from communities their democratic right to decide the structure of their local council’s operations.

All signs are that a much-watered-down version will emerge.

Even so, there will be a collective sigh of relief as this hot potato finally gets smoked.

Watch out, too, this year for any related changes to the mandate for the Local Government Commission – the work of which continues to unsettle those councils faced with possible...

QUARTERS 2017

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• Local Government Risk Agency issues risk management framework. Early 2017 • The Chief Archivist conducts initial visits and interviews with councils on the new records management standard. Early 2017 • Provider is selected for 3 waters national metadata standards project and work gets underway • LGNZ releases draft discussion paper as part of its stronger economic development research programme. Early 2017

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• Three more councils expected to have joined current 51 as members of the NZ Local Government Funding Agency • OAG publishes Council Controlled Organisations sector snapshot

May Local Government Excellence Programme: 17 more councils’ assessments are released

10 Local Government and Environment Select Committee report due on Resource Legislation Amendment Bill

April

17 – 18 Green Pavlova: NZRA’s Parks and Open

Call for second intake of councils taking part in LGNZ’s Local Government Excellence Programme

Spaces Conference, Wellington

22 – 23 ALGIM Autumn Conference: GIS and Information Management / Records, Wellington

Start date for applications to WasteMINZ 2017 Strategic Investment Fund

22 – 24 2017 Australasian Management Challenge finals, Tasmania

11 – 12 6th Annual EA/PA in the Public Sector Conference, Wellington

12 2017 McGredy Winder SOLGM Local Government Excellence Awards, Auckland

June Minister for the Environment to have completed review of the effectiveness of waste disposal levies by mid-year

1 The New Zealand Love Food Hate Waste campaign turns two

22 – 24 2017 IPWEA NZ Conference: ‘Blurring the lines – integrating our efforts’, Dunedin

well, we’re not quite sure what. Amalgamation now appears to be off the cards but other forms of joining up are still firmly on the table.

Still on regulatory reform, this could be the year that the Resource Legislation Amendment Bill finally passes into law in whatever form it may take. And, as Privacy Commissioner John Edwards noted in Local Government Perspectives recently, the 20 year-old Privacy Act may be reformed if the government goes ahead with its earlier commitment to introduce a Privacy

Bill based on the Law Commission’s 2011 recommendations.

That segues into an underlying angst at many councils about how to handle conflicting demands for both privacy and open data. And overlaying all of that are growing concerns about cybersecurity. Nobody said 2017 would be dull.

Alternate methods of funding in general – and infrastructure renewal and investment in particular – will continue to exercise hearts and minds. On the operational side, the inquiry team looking at last year’s Havelock North campylobacter outbreak

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ROADMAP

July Preparation for 2018-28 LTP round kicks in: including early reviews of infrastructure strategies

August 2–5

Civil Contractors New Zealand Conference 2017, Dunedin

OAG adopts “water” as its work theme for 2017/18

9 – 11 NZRA JAWS

1 Building (earthquake-prone

(Just Add Water) Conference, Christchurch

buildings) legislation comes into force

1 Funding starts for next round of Envirolink tool grants

22 – 23 Maori Legal, Business and Governance Forum, Wellington

19 – 21 Aggregate and Quarry

September Amendments to Dog Control Act 1996 put before select committee

7–8

Association of New Zealand (AQA) annual conference, Auckland

NZRA’s Outdoors Forum, Wellington

23 Member authorities elect LGNZ

17 – 19 ALGIM Spring Conference:

president and vice president at AGM

Web & Digital, and Customer Experience, Dunedin

23 – 25 LGNZ conference and EXCELLENCE Awards, Auckland

17 – 22 Water New Zealand’s 59th Annual Conference and Expo, Hamilton

27 – 29 SOLGM Annual Summit, Rotorua

is due to report back to government by late March. This is tipped to bring operational changes to how local authorities manage their water resources.

Expect, too, to see some solid progress this year on some big bodies of work around resilient infrastructure. These include underlying work on creating metadata standards for water resources which will create a meaningful platform for further analysis and smarter (we hope), more informed longterm planning. Look out, too, for the sexily-titled EvidenceBased Investment Decision-Making for 3 Waters Pipe Network Programme (or Pipe Renewals programme for short). This joint initiative between Water New Zealand, the Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia (IPWEA) and the Quake Centre based at Canterbury University aims to provide tools to enable more nationally-consistent decisions on where and how to renew and replace 3 waters network piping.

The impact of the newly-enacted National Policy Statement on Urban Development Capacity 2016 will start to be felt this year. Not surprisingly, it’s most likely to have repercussions in councils in fast-growth urban centres such as Auckland,

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Christchurch, Tauranga, Hamilton, Nelson and Queenstown, which will now be required to have a sufficient supply of land for housing and business growth.

A huge number of other initiatives aim to tackle issues as diverse as improving perceptions of local government’s reputation (which needs a really good boost to even get to ‘okish’), creating a strategy to attract and retain talented people in the sector, procurement practices, health and safety... the list goes on and on.

Finally, as we did last year, we publish this ‘roadmap’ with a couple of giant provisos. First, please read all dates as indicative not definitive. Plans and priorities change: even more so in a general election year. Second, this list isn’t exhaustive. Every time we review it we think of more items to include. Some things are absent simply because they don’t yet come with dates attached. If we’ve left out some enormous item, please let me know.

And if you’re wondering what may happen in December, so are we. It seems it’s too far away for planning purposes. Hence the big gap. I’m sure we’ll all find out soon enough. LG

QUARTERS 2017

3

rd

• Expected start to the roll-out of metadata standards for water assets • OAG releases Auckland Council review of service performance: Customer-centric transformation report. Focuses on improving customer experience and using more digitised systems

4

th

• Local Government Commission’s final proposal on ideas for a formal relationship between Wairarapa District Council and the Greater Wellington Regional Council

November 6 – 9 WasteMINZ 29th Annual Conference, Hamilton

8 – 10 NZRA National Conference, New Plymouth

October

13 – 15 ALGIM Annual

9 – 10 SOLGM’s Funding

Conference: including infrastructure technical stream, Rotorua

& Rating Forum, Christchurch

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For regular updates on local government events go to our website.

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INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

SHAPING THE FUTURE Leading the Change At the 2016 Annual ALGIM Conference Robotic earthworms, stolen bacon, printed houses and video games as an Olympic sport were all on the agenda at the 2016 Annual ALGIM Conference as IT managers from around the country gathered for their yearly talkfest of practical, futuristic and downright challenging ideas. Ruth Le Pla reports on some of the highlights.

Landfills, printed clothing and those driverless cars: What to expect Keynote international speaker Thomas Frey sketches out a future in which he says the human race is entering a period of unprecedented opportunity. “Humanity s going to change more in the next 20 years than in all human history. And at the same time our risk factors are going to increase exponentially. More things can break. “ Thomas is a world-leading futurist, executive director of the Colorado-based think-tank the DaVinci Institute, and former innovation editor of The Futurist magazine.

Some of his more concrete predictions include: • Our most valuable land in the future will be our landfills. “That’s because that’s where we bury our natural resources,” he says. “So rather than just ploughing everything over we will invent

robotic earthworms to go and mine out all of the good stuff.”

• The internet of things will virtually eliminate theft. According to Thomas the ability to tag anything of value and know where it is at any given time will drive this change. He jokes that although this may not “totally” eliminate theft “it will certainly breed a higher calibre of criminal”.

• Driverless cars will change transportation more dramatically than the invention of the automobile itself. “That’s becoming fairly obvious.”

• By 2030 the average person will own printed clothing, live in a printed house, have packages delivered by drones, own more than one robot, work as a freelancer,

Thomas Frey

frequently use a driverless car and be capable of accomplishing 10 times as much as the average person today.

• T he next major leap forward will be in video games. “In South Korea they already have 100,000 people showing up for video game summits with US$1 million prizes,” he says.

“There’s some talk about video games becoming an Olympic sport.”

(For more information see Thomas Frey’s article “Ch-ch-ch-Changes” in the November 2016 issue of Local Government Magazine.)

Core infrastructure in 2050 Futurist Thomas Frey performed in November a futuristic 2016 pre-launch of his then upcoming new book Epiphany Z: Eight radical visions for transforming your future which is now officially available in 2017.

His book is intended as a “roadmap to the future” spanning everything from new industries (and those that may be on the extinction list) to the implications of new advancements in robotics, drone

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technologies, transport and manufacturing.

He acknowledges that “virtually every piece of infrastructure creates jobs, revenue streams, and investment opportunities”. But he argues that the world of infrastructure has “far too many sacred cows with built-in inertias that are highly resistant to change”.

Looking forward to 2050, his ten examples of how core infrastructure, in its widest sense, is about to change are:

• Driverless cars and highways; • Tube transportation networks; • Atmospheric water harvesters; • Micro colleges; • Space-based power stations; • Drone delivery networks; • Mass energy storage; • A global language archive (which he has suggested could be based in New Zealand); • A whole-earth genealogy project; and • A trillion-sensor infrastructure.

Councils can help combat crime Council rubbish bags have been on the shoplifting lists of some well-known criminal offenders in the Auckland region along with more widespread thefts of bacon and vehicles throughout the country.

The unorthodox list of items comes courtesy of Phil Thomson whose company Auror is in the crime prevention software business. Auror’s networked platform aims to transform the way the police and communities present and solve crime in real-time by quickly mapping incidents and enabling people to see patterns that can be hard to link together via paper-based systems.

Phil says council bin bags provided such a lucrative income that a group of offenders specialised in these items alone.

“They knew they could sell them off on the black market and make quite a bit of money from the deal. They were often taking $2000 worth of bags at a time and then just heading out the door.

Not stopping. Not paying.”

“It’s a surprising item to be taken,” he says, “but criminals can get rid of them easily and quickly for quite a bit of money. They steal quite a few at a time and then sell them off to local dairies who put them on sale.”

Phil says such thefts are most prevalent

Councils can work with Auror to feed information to the police.

around the Auckland area alongside a couple of other pockets of theft throughout the country.

“Obviously, the bags for which you have to pay are the ones targeted.”

Phil – whose talk at the ALGIM conference was titled “shaping the future of crime fighting with information and intelligence” – says $2 million worth of goods are stolen every single day from retail stores throughout New Zealand.

“When people think of crime they think of bank robberies and jewellery heists: the high risk / high reward crimes that movies are made of.

“In fact, most crime that occurs is low risk and low reward. And these everyday crimes are causing a big problem for our communities.”

A spate of bacon thefts made the headlines last year when it was revealed that 100 kilograms of bacon had been taken in one go in the Marlborough area. The bacon was later offered for sale on Facebook for $500 – which is well below the market rate.

Phil says the police were also finding chest freezers full of bacon when they raided properties where drugs were being sold – uncovering a direct trade in bacon for tinnies of marijuana.

He adds that car theft is strikingly prevalent in this country. Every year around 50,000 vehicles are stolen in New Zealand. This is in marked contrast to the situation in Australia, “where with a population of around four times the size, they have about half the number of vehicles stolen that we do”.

Phil says many councils need to understand there’s a crime problem in their communities and encourage their local retailers to report incidents either direct to the police or via Auror.

He says some councils are running licence plate recognition programmes and they can work with Auror to feed information to the police.

“We also work with business associations, who are supported by their councils, to help their members report crime.”

Warning: Dangers ahead Tony Krzyzewski (known as Tony K) delivers his 20th annual presentation with his trademark panache, warning of the current and imminent dangers of the cyber world. In his talk “20 years on and it just gets scarier”, he challenges council IT managers to assume that their organisation is going to be compromised and

centre their actions on that. not going to get any better. This is the year for He says they must drive a sense of urgency change.” Tony K is director of IT systems and quarter page horizontal 64x180mm about IT security up to senior management. “It’s security firm TonyK.NZ.

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www.localgovernmentmag.co.nz To read Tony K’s list of the 10 biggest mistakes that IT managers make, go to our website. Search: Tony Krzyewski

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INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY How to capture benefits of broadband rollout Craig Young outlines the role that councils can play in the next few years as the quality, speed and efficiency of broadband services are tipped to improve while costs should go down.

Craig, who is CE of the Telecommunications Users Association of New Zealand (TUANZ), says that under the current rural broadband initiatives there are opportunities for councils to co-fund. “There are also options to extend the networks further beyond what the

government might be able to put in.”

Councils can also ensure that land is available for technology. “So, for example, when you build a sub-division make sure there is space for cell towers: just simple things like that.”

He calls on councils to view communications technology as a key infrastructure. He praises Otorohonga District Council for ensuring fibre was included in early

plans for building a new business park.

He also cites Western Bay of Plenty District Council as a good example of a council that is pulling together information and assessing priorities for the future communications needs of its communities.

Craig says councils can also take indirect positive action by encouraging their local businesses to use the technology that’s available to bring economic development to their area.

experience transformation: Building consent inspection process Shared Services Office (Porirua, Upper Hutt and Wellington City Councils, and Wellington Water) – ICT shared services programme Gisborne District Council – Mobility solution for rivers and land drainage asset maintenance Northland Regional Council – The fight against Mediterranean fanworm (See article “Seven smart moves” in Local Government Magazine July 2016.)

Otorohanga District Council – Otorohanga free

CBF wifi from Kiwi to Kiwi 2016 ALGIM EXCELLENCE IN LEADERSHIP AWARD WINNER: Joanne Proffit, Gisborne District Council 2016 ALGIM VMWARE AWARD WINNER: Nye Goodhue, Tauranga City Council 2016 ALGIM ICT VENDOR OF THE YEAR WINNER: Vodafone JOINT RUNNERS UP: Datacom, 2degrees LG

AWARDS Congratulations to the following award winners at the 2016 Annual ALGIM Awards.

See our coverage of three of these projects starting on page 21 of this issue.

2016 ALGIM EXCELLENCE IN INNOVATION AWARD (Sponsored by Information Leadership) WINNER: Palmerston North City Council – Manawatu Heritage: A new kind of digital repository RUNNER UP: Environment Canterbury – Matrix of Good Management Farm Portal FINALISTS: Stratford District Council – Customer

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Breaking New Ground The how, what and why behind three ICT projects celebrated at the 2016 Annual ALGIM Awards.

GISBORNE DISTRICT COUNCIL

Mobility solution for rivers and land drainage asset maintenance What problem were you trying to resolve?

We wanted to increase the data quality and completeness for all maintenance works (both scheduled and reactive). Ideally, we had to stop using paper and transition to a paperless mobile solution for our rivers and land drainage field team that ensures the information is loaded into the system before staff leave the worksite. Now, asset location, maintenance and inspections data is entered once and close to the source (saving time) with the ability to attach photos or documents to support that data..

How First of all, with clear requirements. The solution had to be: simple to use; flexible; non-disruptive, compatible with existing standard operational procedures; aligned with council’s health and safety procedures; and easily transferrable to other areas, such as parks and reserves, and utilities.

Second, we had early engagement of end users, including complete training and field “escorting”. The planned go-live date for this piece of work was February 2016.

We started engaging the team in September 2015, sharing our vision and working with them to create “a desire for change”. Also, we instilled a sense of pride within the team. They would be the “first to see the light”.

We involved them in the user interface definition and testing process, as we knew this would help us neutralise any future opposition.

Finally, we trained team members in January, close to the go-live date.

And, during the first couple of weeks after go-live, we were supporting them in the field, by their side.

Technology Our solution was developed on a fieldGO (formerly KernMobile) enterprise mobility platform and deployed on ruggedised tablets. It was also integrated with our backend (Infor’s IPS8 and ArcGIS) using DataPump (fieldGO integration module) to access some web services built ad-hoc.

External suppliers The solution was developed in-house, by our own business analysts and IT staff, but we partnered with fieldGO which helped us with initial scoping, training of our IT staff and fixing any bugs.

Results The users are more than satisfied with the solution. They’ve been successful in adopting the new system and making it work. This was key to realising the project benefits.

• Time saved retrieving asset information. The system provides a paperless mobile solution that ensures the information is loaded into the system before staff leave the worksite. Over 80 percent of old paper-based information has been disposed of.

Gisborne District Council rivers and land drainage ganger Paul Davis using the new mobility solution.

• Accurate asset information. Any differences between preloaded information and actual data captured can be easily and readily identified and reported.

• Streamlined, consistent business processes now result in better quality data and increased efficiency.

• Asset history such as maintenance, inspections and repairs are all easily tracked and reported on. Data is entered once and close to the source. Staff also have the ability to attach photos to support data.

• Improved capability to analyse and optimise maintenance.

– We have a complete asset register in a centralised corporate system (IPS8) linked to GIS and accessible on site via our mobility solution.

– Site access details are recorded.

– We have automated manual scheduling of works and scheduled inspections of leases on floodway land.

– The maintenance history of all assets held is easily accessed when needed (this is particularly important on site).

– Field inspectors can record faults found which initiates follow-up workflow.

– We can manage a work “to-do” list initiated by the public, council staff or schedules.

• Increased awareness and assurance of the team using, and adhering to, our health and safety policies.

Learnings This pilot project has validated our delivery process and set up the foundations for additional mobility solutions we have developed for other teams (including parks and reserves, and utilities). It also helped confirm the importance of early engagement and other change management activities for project success.

Source: Javier Zaya, senior project manager – information services, Gisborne District Council.

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INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY PALMERSTON NORTH CITY COUNCIL

Manawatu Heritage: A new kind of digital repository What problem were you trying to resolve?

Our existing digital library, running on ArchivalWare, was aging. Pataka Ipurangi, as it was called, offered the ability for the library to upload single digital images, limited to 800 pixels wide, as well as multi-page documents converted to PDFs, and audio.

But while this system had started us on the road to providing wider access to our collections via digitisation, it became increasingly obvious that Pataka Ipurangi didn’t have the capacity to help us reach the vision and goals that our unit and wider council aspired to. And while we knew we had great content, it did not allow us to showcase it.

Of particular note was that it had no ability for the community to interact with the content in any form, or even with us from the site. Also while we continued to grow our community contributions through the traditional methods of donation or lending of items for us to digitise and upload, there were obvious barriers to growing our collection and to capturing today’s stories.

As well, Pataka Ipurangi was not built for a world where social media dominates, and information is found foremost via Google.

The system was not findable or linkable due to session-based URLs. It was not easily harvestable, due to lack of harvesting protocols and an application programming interface (API), and it was not mobile friendly.

SHARED SERVICES OFFICE (Porirua, Upper Hutt & Wellington City Councils, & Wellington Water) ICT Shared Services Programme What problem were you trying to resolve?

Councils in the Wellington region reviewed their IT operations and agreed they were not sustainable for a number of reasons: • Lack of standardisation and organisational scale limited purchasing efficiencies, increased complexity and raised the risk of failure.

• Increasing reliance on technology to deliver core services was hiking pressure on systems environments to be available 24/7 and to be more resilient.

• Rapid developments in technology capability and connectivity were raising public expectations for a wider breadth of services across multiple platforms.

• The high level of effort required to maintain old legacy systems was reducing the required agility to respond to customer needs in a timely manner.

• A general shortage of high-quality technology skills meant an ongoing challenge finding and retaining good staff.

• There was significant management overhead in managing multiple vendors and commercial contracts How A feasibility study recommended that a shared services solution was practical and realisable. The shared services model seeks to address all the identified issues. The service providers designed, built, paid for and maintain the physical service infrastructure that delivers the technology services.

The participating councils / agencies (Porirua, Upper Hutt and Wellington City Councils, and Wellington Water) simply pay for their use of the services.

A single service interface, the Shared Services Office (SSO) manages and monitors the service providers on behalf of the councils. The level and cost of service is defined in a master services agreement between the SSO

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How We started by developing a project charter which clearly identified team roles, the scope of the project, and a robust needs analysis, while also applying for programme funding under the council’s long-term plan (LTP).

We analysed current usage, mapped stakeholders, conducted surveys and focus groups, and sought to understand current trends and opportunities.

Project management was well organised, and communication and task management were facilitated through Basecamp.

Once funding was secured in the LTP, the team made some tough choices.

We chose to favour usability over accuracy, simplicity over powerful functionality, collaboration over control, free access to content over strict legal compliance, and community engagement over standards compliance.

The request for proposal was developed to ensure that functional and non-functional specifications were simply and clearly worded, and that priorities were clear. The message to the prospective vendors was that we wanted the system to be: fast, reliable, simple, mobile and interoperable.

Once we had selected Auckland-based company My Tours as our developer, we collaboratively defined the development deliverables and a delivery schedule and signed the contract.

Technology We used the Basecamp online project management tool.

External suppliers My Tours.

and the service providers. This contract makes provision for additional services, service providers and councils under the same terms and conditions.

The overall service is owned and governed by the participating councils / agencies Technology The infrastructure provides up-to-date server, Channa Jayasinha WAN, LAN, desktop and mobile technology to bring all the participants to the same level of technology.

The servers are spread across two data centres, providing disaster recovery capability.

The integrated architecture is designed around five service towers: Service integration – based around a common service desk providing end-to-end service integration and service monitoring and management (problems, incidents, requests, service levels, knowledge, availability, events, changes and assets).

• Infrastructure management – data centres, data storage, disaster recovery provision, application servers plus identity, control and security systems.

• Network management – a regional and local networking environment linking computers, mobiles, internet and business systems plus a shared telephone system.

• Desktop services – these provide and manage items such as desktop and laptop equipment, printers and scanners. They provide software deployment.

• Mobile services – provide and manage mobile phones and tablets; integration with phone system, email and calendars; connection to data and web.

In addition, a logical sixth tower provides strategic advisory services which leverages the global technology capability of the principal service provider, Dimension Data. These professional services support the ICT function of the participating councils and help shape the growth and

Results Manawatu Heritage is built to be easily discoverable through search engines and content aggregators such as DigitalNZ. From the customer’s first encounter with the repository, they are met with a clean design that leads them into a great user experience through: • only presenting meaningful options; • the speed of delivery of items; • high-resolution viewing; • easy sharing through permalinks; • the viewing of a much wider range of collection items such as photograph albums and other complex objects in their entirety; • the ability to download large files, depending on copyright status and the sharing of copyrighted works to a large degree through zooming, while protecting the owner’s rights; and • the same experience no matter what device is used for viewing. This is essential when capitalising on click-throughs from mobile social media.

Foremost amongst the benefits is the ease with which people can now interact with the repository, from uploading their own content (images and written articles), through to commenting, tagging and favouriting individual items.

Importantly, Manawatu Heritage has the capability to really support our library’s vision of Te Ara Whanui o Te Ao (Inspiring people to explore the pathways to the world).

The repository is also an effective delivery mechanism for the Palmerston North City Council’s heritage, digital and arts strategies. For example, through Manawatu Heritage better Palmerston North Library showcasing our wider collections in a clean, user-friendly manner, and providing the ability to build community-driven content, we are supporting the number one driver for the heritage strategy; valuing and raising awareness of our city’s rich heritage.

Building another system which is available for use by the wider sector is also a huge benefit to New Zealand and even worldwide Learnings • Be very clear about what you are trying to achieve, and be united as a project team in what this is.

• Take your time to plan and consult widely.

• Work with a vendor who wants the same thing as you. It makes it a lot easier to develop something you are both invested in, and there is an understanding about what you are trying to achieve.

• Don’t think you will get it right in one year. The best thing we did was to start with a minimal variable product (MVP) and build upon it as, despite best intentions, after going live you are sure to shift or change priorities.

Source: Lesley Courtney, heritage team leader, Palmerston North City Council.

technology direction of the shared service through the identification and adoption of new technology capability.

External suppliers Dimension Data was selected as the principal service provider to design, build and maintain the technology platform.

Results The full transition exercise, which will put all participating agencies on the same hardware and operational software platform, will not be fully in place until the first quarter of 2017, so full measurable results in terms of performance and cost benefits are not yet available. However less tangible benefits are becoming clear: • Providing staff with simplified, modernised platforms should produce a better and more reliable work environment; • Upgrading security standards should generate improved safety and performance; • The shared telephone system will facilitate staff flexibility and mobility which is further enhanced by the Desktop as a Service and the Enterprise Mobile as a Service facilities; • Dual data centres and network redundancy provide business continuity and disaster recovery capability; • Access to Dimension Data’s global expertise ensures that we are better positioned to embrace technology change; • Known service levels and rates, and standard units of cost of consumption make for more predictable budgeting; • Multiple participating agencies do start to give greater economies of scale; • The service provider takes responsibility for most hardware and software procurement, the agencies simply pay a usage charge for the level of service they use – this is an operational expense; • Having known and common service level agreements across all participating agencies takes pressure off the IT function allowing them more time to focus on high value work;

• The single service interface (the SSO) reduces the vendor and contract management overhead; and • Contractual rights to monitor, measure and audit performance facilitate Section 17a requirements.

Learnings There have been many lessons and we are still learning. No matter how good the due diligence is, there will always be surprises and unknowns. Predictive usage and traffic rates are usually low in practice. Although councils have legislatively similar objectives, they pursue very different routes of delivery and have very different cultures – all of which have to be worked around.

Parallel change across multiple agencies adds a whole new dimension of complexity. Change is definitely more effective in short steps. It is vital to manage expectations. The service will not be perfect in every way and probably doesn’t need to be, but has to be significantly better than the current state.

Retaining good relationships and having constant, open and honest communication is absolutely critical.

Other comments Since its original conception, it has always been planned that the service should be accessible by other councils or agencies, and this is reflected in the ‘umbrella’ master services agreement which allows the on-boarding of new participants as well as new services and new service providers under the same broad terms and conditions.

For prospective new councils, the good news is that the environment has been significantly de-risked. The original participating agencies have made the commitment and provided the funding to make the service a reality.

Dimension Data has made the commitment and taken the risk of designing, building and maintaining the operational infrastructure.

On completion, the transition programme will have probably identified and remedied at least 90 percent of issues likely to arise with any new onboarding agency.

Source: Channa Jayasinha, manager, Shared Services Office. LG

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ASSET MANAGEMENT

Cemetery Management

A delicate balancing act New technologies, increasing cultural diversity, revised industry standards, rising land costs and competing demand for space are just some of the factors affecting how councils must now manage cemeteries and crematoria.

W

e live in complex and changing times, and how we manage death is no exception. People have widely varying expectations when it comes to the manner in which they want to farewell their loved ones or decorate grave sites. Accounting for personal grief while setting clear rules around how grave sites are managed can be a challenge for councils and other administrators.

Auckland Council cemeteries manager Catherine Moore says many people want something unique and there is no one-size-fits-all approach. “With increasing cultural diversity, this can present something of a challenge. Councils and funeral directors have to be flexible while factoring in aspects such as by-laws and health and safety.”

In Auckland, the council also has to consider the issue of space, an increasingly rare commodity when people expect burial ‘in perpetuity’.

“We’re competing for space with developers, and there are other considerations such as the need to maintain parks and other open spaces,” Catherine says.

Growing cultural and ethnic diversity in New Zealand’s largest city also means different groups follow different traditions.

“We have members of our Hindu community for example wanting to scatter ashes into flowing water, while for Maori the waterways are considered tapu – sacred.”

The council works with migrant communities and their

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religious leaders to resolve some of these issues, and this can lead to positive results. In one instance, an iwi agreed to allow a specific waterway to be used for Hindu funeral rites.

Catherine says a collaborative approach is needed but working out solutions takes time.

In terms of space, councils try to plan ahead.

“We’re trying to purchase land, and we’re looking at areas outside the city,” says Catherine. “It’s the only way to keep it affordable. In Auckland, we look at where growth areas will be, at public transport options and likely motorway expansions.”

New Zealand Cemeteries and Crematoria Collective (NZCCC) Advisory Group chair Michelle Rivers says improved contact and collaboration can ensure understanding and consistent service between private and public cemeteries and crematoria, and with related industries such as funeral directors, industry suppliers and monumental masons.

NZCCC is the national representative body for New Zealand’s cemeteries and crematoria. The organisation works to improve sharing of information among relevant organisations and to support workers in the sector by connecting them with appropriate professional development opportunities.

“We need to ensure there is enough funding for training and professional development,” says Michelle. “The sector requires a talented, committed workforce, with adequate

PHOTO COURTESY OF: LISA SNOW.

Clockwise from far left: Hamilton East Cemetery.

Children exploring returned services area at Karori Cemetery.

A natural burial bordering a farm at Makara Cemetery.

Cemetery workers maintaining a historic grave site in Bolton Street Cemetery, Wellington.

qualifications and industry standards to support it.”

Smaller towns have to deal with similar challenges to those faced by busy urban centres such as Auckland and Christchurch. They too have to plan ahead when it comes to burial space. Waipa District Council parks and reserves team leader Max Ward says councils need to be planning 40 to 50 years ahead.

“Traditionally, many cemeteries were situated away from towns but with population growth and urbanisation, towns have gradually grown around these burial spaces, and now many of these spaces are landlocked. This means extension is not always easy or possible.”

Waipa District Council recently purchased a subdivided plot of land adjoining Te Awamatu cemetery so that it could be used to extend the cemetery.

“For now at least we don’t have a space issue,” says Max. “But we are all in the same boat in the longer term.”

Technology is another influencing factor and has changed the sector in significant ways. Nowadays, people can for example ‘log in’ to a funeral service online, instead of being physically present. This means people who are not very mobile or who are too far away to travel, are able to be there at least in a virtual sense.

Alongside technological advances, there is for many a desire for greater simplicity in the rituals associated with death. Wellington-based funeral director Fiona King says

there is a marked increase in the number of people seeking natural burials.

“The driver is a greater awareness of the environment.

People who choose natural burials are often driven by a desire not to impact on the earth. They don’t want the fuss or the bling, and they don’t want waste.”

In Wellington, the Makara Cemetery allows for natural burials. These take place in more shallow ground than traditional burials and have no headstones. Trees are planted over the burial area.

“This means that, rather than standing over a grave, what you’ll be doing where someone was buried is standing back and looking at a general area covered in trees. That’s quite a big mental shift for people, but that shift is occurring.”

Fiona predicts the next generation will want natural burials and that by 2030, it will be quite common.

“Increasingly, with social media and other online activity, people view their legacy as being online, not buried under a headstone,” she says.

Then there is the attraction of reconnecting with nature.

“The ceremony around natural burials is quite beautiful.

Out at Makara, you’ll see sheep and geese in the area, and lots of birds. Sometimes there’ll be horses in the nearby paddock and children are encouraged to feed them carrots.

It’s more physical, more down-to-earth. People turn up in their gumboots.” LG

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ROADING

On the Fast Track Kaikoura transport network A modelling tool helped quickly identify options for additional surfacing and paving work on an alternate route after the Kaikoura earthquake wiped out the town’s main road link.

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wo minutes after midnight on Monday November 14 last year, the second biggest earthquake in New Zealand’s history struck south-west of Kaikoura. The quake devastated the main transport arterial route through Kaikoura which links Picton and Christchurch, cutting off the small town and severely impacting the main freight transportation network in the region.

The New Zealand Transport Agency’s immediate requirement was to analyse and advise on a safe, alternate transport route as quickly as possible.

Gordon Hart, from the NZTA and director at IDS (Infrastructure Decision Support – an industry-driven notfor-profit organisation), and his team were tasked with this challenge. They were given a two-day turnaround to assess what their options were for an alternate route for primarily freight vehicles, which at that stage was the State Highway 63 to State Highway 7 network.

They needed to know what additional surfacing and paving work might be needed on this alternative route in order to create a sustainable route for the medium term, with a time horizon, at that time for planning purposes, of up to three years.

In terms of the impact on the alternate route, it was going to be a massive seven-fold increase in pavement loading.

Reconnaissance work was needed to firstly assess if it was actually a viable route.

Gordon said, “It was an issue to start with because NZTA was trying to determine what the route would need in order to carry a high volume of heavy vehicles in a sustained manner, but their preference was to assess that based on its current performance. But that by itself wasn’t going to give us the full picture.”

work had recently been carried out on the national network generating a 20-year forecast, and this was used as a starting framework to assess the new route.

A key part of the project fell on Elke Beca from Opus, who carried out the modelling / theoretical work over two working days and one weekend. The team found the dTIMS tool was flexible enough for them to customise and add in extra functions, specifically the expected traffic loading increases.

This increased the sensitivity of the model, resulting in a model-generated work programme that aligned very well with the programme visually assessed by the team in the field based on people’s knowledge of the network. This gave the whole team confidence they were in the right ball park.

The reconnaissance work was carried out on the Thursday / Friday, whilst simultaneously, Elke was conducting the dTIMS modelling work. They drew on both the modelling tool and the team’s experience to help construct a plan of what additional programming and surfacing work was needed to create a sustainable route for the medium term.

First cut By the Monday morning the team had a good first cut. It gave them a programme of immediate needs that were visually obvious or already planned, along with the less obvious, where current condition was satisfactory but forecast to deteriorate rapidly due to expected increases in traffic loading.

The project team then went back and, this time, looked at the theoretical structure of the network to determine if there were any more requirements they might need to cater for in that twoto three-year planning period.

“We needed to worry about the theoretical capacity of the pavement because it obviously had not been built to handle such a high traffic load,” says Gordon.

Starting framework A reconnaissance team was quickly assembled. Based on their knowledge of the network and on what they could see of the route’s current performance, they realised they needed to take a more multi-layered approach and utilise all the tools available to them.

They engaged IDS’ industry modelling tool dTIMS (Deighton Total Infrastructure Management System). Robust modelling

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Find out more The dTIMS (Deighton Total Infrastructure Management System) modelling tool is accessible to every road controlling authority in New Zealand, regardless of its size or resources. For more information contact IDS: http://ids.org.nz/.

“The problem was all of that work still relied, to an extent, on using a current performance level indicator of the network to assess its future requirements. We needed to extend a little beyond that from what we would normally undertake in a modelling analysis, and look a little more closely at conditional trend information, particularly the trends relating to pavement strength capability.

“We identified some additional sites where the current trend of performance suggested that there might be pavement capability issues as well. We’re currently looking at those sites more carefully to determine whether there is any reality in that or how this will impact future requirements.”

Live network

The primary route was closed by the earthquake devastation.

An alternate route was established for the main freight transport network (highlighted in grey).

The biggest challenge was the fact that the network was live.

Having got through the first cut of determining what the immediate needs were via the modelling work, the team then had to build that live, which Gordon says was a mission in itself.

“When the reconnaissance exercise was done in the field there wasn’t any freight going across Cook Strait,” he says.

“However, by the last day of the two-day reconnaissance exercise, there were trucks being dropped off at Picton by the ferry and they were travelling down the route. We finished the reconnaissance exercise while the route was very, very busy and with a high volume of traffic, a lot of which was heavy.

“In terms of immediate work, obviously, we can’t just obstruct the traffic with roadworks whilst it’s flowing, and it’s also very narrow so there is no opportunity to single lane it and keep the traffic moving. It’s quite a logistical exercise, but it demonstrated that we needed to be using all the tools in our tool box when something like this happens.”

All those tools put together gave the project team the best chance of being able to construct a programme that they could put in place while the network was live, and minimise any further disruption to traffic resulting from the pavements and surfacing inability to perform.

Gordon says, “It was pretty much a case of using all the tools that we had and the dTIMS modelling tool was very much a part of that.

“We haven’t finished the final assessment based on theoretical structural capability, but so far all of the planets have lined up in terms of what we have and what we are actually working on at the moment and implementing something that will keep the route sustainable.”

For the project team, the immediate driver was to start getting on with it because the network is working and traffic is on it.

Gordon admits, “It’s always nice to have a lot of time to plan but the reality is we were dealing with a live situation and that is one of the reasons it was essential to recognise that we had the tools to be that responsive.

“To be able to theorise the capacity of the network, we needed to go out and do some testing and get a little bit more information about the pavement itself and that takes time.

“But to be able to get started on an immediate package of work on the most vulnerable sections of the network, we had to have results in an extremely short period of time and dTIMS was invaluable in providing that response.” LG

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PROCUREMENT

The Tender Trap Better contracts When it comes to procurement, both councils and suppliers can lift their game.

Caroline Boot, from Clever Buying and Plan A, explained how at the NZ Transport Agency / NZIHT 17th annual conference. Alan Titchall reports.

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aving an interest in both the client and supplier side of contracting places Caroline Boot in a unique place as an observer of tendering challenges and trends. “Everyone talks about smart procurement, but it is like teen sex,” she says. “They all say they are doing it but very few are, and those that are – are doing it very badly.”

Her presentation at the NZ Transport Agency / NZIHT conference was based on responses to two surveys – one sent to a large database of companies that regularly prepare tender submissions, and the other to the clients they typically prepare tenders for.

The surveys asked both clients and suppliers for information and advice on the right way to put out a tender and the right way to submit one.

“Given that we gave them a very short space of time to complete the survey, we got over 60 very insightful responses,” Caroline says.

“Among the clients there were both small and large councils and private organisations such as Fonterra. The majority of suppliers were civil contractors.”

Most clients said they had experienced a decrease (or no change) in the number of tender responses they received, and some commented on an improved quality of tenders.

Among suppliers “insufficient time” was clearly the biggest concern, along with tenders that were too focused on price.

“Suppliers say they don’t want to engage in a price war,

especially when work is plentiful,” says Caroline.

“Lowest Price Conforming is seen to be a race to the bottom.

And if you do use it – don’t ask for a whole lot of generic attributes. Be specific: ditch those generic questions that contribute little towards finding the best bidder for the job.

Importantly – don’t transfer all the risk to suppliers.”

Basically, suppliers want ‘reasonable’ time to respond, a clear scope and a simple process.

The clients’ advice was clear: Suppliers need to answer every question while providing confidence that they really understand the contract. It’s also important to make it clear how your company stands out from other companies in its mitigation of the project’s risks; or what opportunities you bring to add value.

“They see a lot of waffle in tenders. Keep it in focus.”

Caroline’s presentation included a panel made up of Malcolm Abernethy from CCNZ (representing suppliers); Jack Hansby from the NZTA; Dave Colquhoun, procurement manager at Auckland Transport; and Neil Cook, as acting Northland Transportation Alliance manager.

Malcolm Abernethy’s advice to clients was to provide plenty of response time and treat negotiations throughout the contract fairly – especially in areas such as variations and extensions of time.

“Reduce the RFT requirements and special conditions, and don’t ask for reams of attributes on a Lowest Price Conforming

Five steps for councils Caroline Boot, from Clever Buying and Plan A, has the following advice for councils wanting to improve their procurement processes.

•W ork closely and cooperatively with your suppliers. Be easy to deal with; show them your pipeline; help them improve; be reasonable; provide opportunities for both big and small companies.

•B e clear what you want and how you will score it. Keep the process simple, efficient and relevant. Decide on fact-based scoring before you look at the responses.

•D on’t waste everyone’s time on repetitive generic info. Use prequalification or supplier

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panels (but make it easy). Don’t blindly recycle RFTs – every project has different drivers for success.

• Select your suppliers on a sensible and fair basis. Don’t over-emphasise price. Lowest Price Conforming tenders make it a race to the bottom, and seldom deliver best value.

Ask the right questions – on project-specific risks and opportunities (only).

•D on’t rush the process. Get your RFx documents accurate, well planned and complete before release. Give sensible timeframes for responses (four plus weeks should be normal).

tender – that’s a waste of everyone’s time and ultimately that will be built into the contract costs, one way or another,” says Malcolm.

He gave an example of a council that puts out a lot of design and construct tenders that are very demanding and onerous on suppliers.

“They are demanding on the contractor who has to come up with the cost for the preliminary design, and they’re a waste of resources because four or five similar designs are all developed in parallel, making the overall costs of tendering many times greater than necessary.

“Unless it’s really specific, or a large project, then it is probably not worth going down the design and construct route.”

Malcolm says Wellington Water has been reviewing its procurement strategy and consulting with contractors, which is a step in the right direction. “They are taking some of the concerns we have mentioned on board.”

Contracting around the country has different constraints, he added. “Often in large cities contract work has to be done at night, or on a site with severe time restrictions.

For example, on Auckland’s roads you can’t put out traffic controls until after 9am; you are not allowed to start work until 10am; you have to start to take traffic control back at 2pm; and clear the site by 3pm.

“This means a project that might normally take about two weeks probably takes about eight weeks. And what does the contractor do with his team between 7am and 10am and 3pm and 5pm? There’s no time, particularly in Auckland, to go to another job.”

The last point Malcolm made was in support of small contractors. “Appreciate that suppliers come in different sizes, and small contractors eventually turn into large ones, but they need work in the meantime.”

Neil Cook, representing small councils, says the Northland Transportation Alliance, made up of three regional councils

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and the NZTA, was a response to the challenge of getting suppliers in the region. (For more on this alliance see the “Northland Transportation Alliance” article on page 20 of Local Government Magazine’s December 2016 issue.)

“It is the ultimate in collaboration between districts and regions in the process of pooling resources,” he says.

“We hope to see a range of benefits across the contracting spectrum, including a [collaborative] procurement review process that will be the foundation of how we do things together into the future.”

Forming this Alliance involved a lot of consultation with the civil contracting sector, where the feedback was very similar to the results of the Clever Buying survey, he adds.

Representing one of the biggest council agencies in the country Dave Colquhoun says keeping all parties happy is a “massive challenge”. “We do recognise that a lot of tendering we do at Auckland Transport is inefficient in terms of money and time.

“Optimising how we procure is a tricky act. My team is taking on some of these issues at the moment in terms of sufficient time, standardising templates and being absolutely clear about our requirements. We’re making good use of evaluation spreadsheets so we get price and non-price weightings right for the project; and focusing on asking relevant questions that are easy to answer.

“Also – come and talk to us. I find with the tendering process there’s a wall between parties, which we don’t need. We invite discussion with you about anything, anytime. Don’t be afraid to contact me for a chat about what’s working for you and what’s not.”

Jack Hansby made the shortest presentation – literally one sentence.

“I focus on three key things – engage with the industry; provide advance notice of work coming up and stick to that programme; and don’t use expediency as an excuse (just repeating existing contracts).” LG

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FEBRUARY 2017 LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE

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WATER

In the Pipeline

Water assets project brings huge potential A new joint venture project aimed at helping councils make better decisions around when to replace water pipes could save millions of dollars. By John Pfahlert and Greg Preston.

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joint initiative between Water New Zealand, the Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia (IPWEA) and the Quake Centre based at Canterbury University will provide tools to enable better and more nationallyconsistent decisions on where and how to renew and replace water piping.

The three partners have combined to create a long-term programme of work to systematically develop guidance and tools to foster alignment of asset management practices across the country.

The aim of the programme is to demonstrate that an integrated and aligned approach to investment in the 3 waters networks will benefit the health and economic wellbeing of all New Zealanders.

The Evidence Based Investment Decision Making for 3 Waters Pipe Network Programme (or Pipe Renewals programme for short) began life at a workshop at Canterbury University in February 2016.

It has been worked up into a framework of 47 projects across 10 themes. These themes feed an overarching Decision

More reading • Exploring the Issues Facing New Zealand’s Water, Wastewater and Stormwater Sector. A Castalia Strategic Advisors report for LGNZ. (2014).

• National Infrastructure Plan 2011 by the New Zealand government.

• Water and Roads: Funding and Management Challenges. A 2014 report by the Office of the Auditor-General.

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Support Framework which will be used as the basis of balancing cost, risk and levels of service taking account of inputs such as growth, risk, condition, resilience and vulnerability.

The Decision Support Framework will also provide the basis of a business case to facilitate the investment discussion between engineers, asset managers, elected members and the community.

In the first instance, the aim is to allow asset managers to use the data that they currently have to make the best informed maintenance and investment decisions they can using an industry best practice framework.

As the NZ Metadata Standards are implemented and the National Pipe Database is developed (as part of this overall programme of work) asset managers will be able to draw on national data to help inform their decisions.

The Pipe Renewals programme has support from all sectors of the water industry including some of the major asset management organisations, consultants, contractors and manufacturers. With the framework developed and four initial projects planned for 2017, the aim is to beginning creating the changes needed within the industry by the end of the year.

The first four projects include:

The Decision Support Framework Working with one or more local authorities, Opus International (a Quake Centre partner) will work through the creation of the 30-year

infrastructure strategy. This will start with a relatively simple age-based renewals profile and then add increasing sophistication based on the data currently available to the authority.

This process will provide a sensitivity analysis in respect to the most important inputs to the decision-making process which will inform the prioritisation of later guidance material.

Resilience Measures & Opportunities for Increased Resilience This guidance document will be written

by Beca (another Quake Centre partner) in conjunction with several other research and industry parties. It will draw heavily on the lessons learnt from the Canterbury earthquake sequence and the SCIRT experience.

Update of the NZ Pipe Inspection Manual (NZPIM) The Quake Centre, with the support of EQC, has funded a team led by ProjectMax to undertake a scoping of the required updates to the NZPIM. This is 10 years out of date and does not fully reflect the advent of new technologies or the lessons learnt from the extensive inspection programmes of the pipe networks in Christchurch.

It is proposed to begin the update as soon as funding is secured.

Scoping of a New Zealand Pipe Database If the value of implementing the New Zealand Metadata Standards is to be fully realised in the water sector there needs to be a way that 3 waters data can be shared across the country. A project to scope the technical, financial and political

Asset renewals of longstanding concern Water services make up around 45 percent of most local body rates bills, and managing maintenance and investment is one of the most difficult parts of a territorial authority’s responsibilities. But unlike most other assets such as buildings, parks and roads, water assets are buried underground and it is difficult to assess their condition and understand how this impacts on the level of service that can be delivered.

opportunities and barriers to a NZ Pipe Database will be explored in the first half of 2017.

The overall project is of national significance and the steering group of Water New Zealand, Quake Centre and IPWEA NZ will continue to seek the support of more partners and central

In 2014, the total replacement value of the 3 waters assets in New Zealand was estimated to be about $45 billion. Many of these assets are nearing the end of their design lives. This all points to a huge replacement burden for local authorities over the next couple of decades.

Yet we know that competing pressures on local authorities means many do not spend what they intend to on capital works.

In 2014 the Office of the Auditor-General identified that during the period between 2007 to 2013, local authorities consistently spent less than they intended on capital works (3 waters and roading), including on asset renewals.

If this continues, the gap between asset renewals expenditure and depreciation for the local government sector could reach between $6 billion and $7 billion in the coming decade.

So it’s vital that councils look to be as efficient and cost effective as possible when facing these costly challenges.

If even a small percentage of the possible renewals cost can be saved by a better understanding of the process, this alone would

amount to many millions of dollars saved.

Local authorities need to build their capability to use their information and systems to get the best performance from their asset networks.

They need to understand how assets perform throughout their lives to know the points at which and whether to maintain, renew, or replace individual asset parts.

Access to good information, and taking an approach shared across the regions, will provide local authorities with the opportunity to save ratepayers’ dollars.

In a 2014 report for LGNZ, Castalia Strategic Advisors showed that councils invest significant resources in trying to improve performance of assets. But many councils operate in independent silos despite a number of guidance documents available such as the International Infrastructure Management Manual, which outlines generic management approaches. It is clear there is a need for guidance and tools specifically developed for water assets that move the discussion from general process to implementation.

government to further develop the guidance material.

At the same time there will be active engagement with the development of the NZ Metadata Standards and the Local Government Risk Agency.

Once the first suite of guidance is completed in 2017, local authorities will

be able to begin use the framework to finesse their investment decisions. LG • J ohn Pfahlert is CEO of Water New Zealand. ceo@waternz.org.nz • Greg Preston is the Canterbury University Quake Centre manager. greg.preston@canterbury.ac.nz

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FEBRUARY 2017 LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE

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SPORT & RECREATION

Fitness for Purpose New technologies are changing the way aquatic and recreation facilities do business.

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young mum books her daughter in for swimming lessons on her mobile phone during her lunch break at work. A team leader at the local recreation centre sees new fitness club bookings in real-time and organises additional sessions. A council manager plans an aquatic facility based on community demand.

Information technology is proving to be a large game changer for managers of council-owned recreation facilities. And councils and local communities alike are reaping the benefits.

Among the believers is Invercargill City Council, which uses some of the latest technology to make it easier for locals and visitors to make the most of recreation centres and aquatic facilities in New Zealand’s southern-most city.

The council’s aquatic services manager Peter Thompson says now the technology to analyse historic data across council business units is available, it is possible to review years and months at a glance, forecasting impact on council rates immediately when planning.

At Splash Palace, Centaman facility management software helps collate information about busy times of year and customer preferences. This leads to greater understanding of how to improve the services the aquatic centre offers the community, Peter says.

“It’s what you do with the information you have that counts.

A good facility management system helps to identify the issues.

“From a level-of-service perspective, this shows us if attendance and membership is increasing or declining, and how different groups participate. If you can get that level of data, you can analyse it and make use of the results.”

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New web- and mobile-based technology also plays a large role, enabling Splash Palace to connect with customers and even staff members.

Splash Palace uses several tools on mobile platforms, including a mobile app designed by Peter and New Zealandbased online rostering and timesheeting software Rosterit, which allows staff to create and check rosters online and from their mobile phones.

Web-based applications are also effective, allowing signup for swim school classes from anywhere customers have internet access. These same applications provide tools for swim teachers to deliver detailed progress reports to parents.

Peter says the ideal situation is when all facets of a facility’s IT infrastructure can come together to complement and support each other.

In the broader business sector, good information technology is a must-have. Nearly a quarter (24 percent) of chief executives surveyed in the 19th Annual Global CEO Survey from PricewaterhouseCoopers felt they did not have enough information about what customers or stakeholders wanted.

The most common challenge for operations leaders (63 percent) was understanding what customers value.

Sixty-eight percent of CEOs backed the power of data and analytics to deliver these results, with customer relationship management (CRM) systems a close second at 65 percent.

From New Zealand respondents, an even greater proportion (72 percent) felt data and analytics would generate the greatest return in terms of engagement with stakeholders.

Community Leisure Management (CLM) general manager of

programmes and IT Geoff Barton agrees good use of data and analytics in recreation facilities improves business efficiency as well as the experience for staff and customers.

CLM specialises in recreation facility management for local government, and employs over 400 staff, servicing 15 recreation facilities across New Zealand.

Geoff recently led the implementation of a ‘live data’ project across CLM terminals to enable greater transparency of membership data, participation numbers and financial information.

“When we started on the project, I knew it had to be something special. With good information technology, we can establish a culture of awareness amongst our staff.

“We’ve linked through using Centaman software as our database, along with OBDC [open database connectivity] and SQL. From front-line staff to the board members, we can see what’s happening to the minute.”

It is early in the project, but there have been immediate qualitative results. Geoff says live data has improved staff knowledge of what is required to achieve KPIs, increased staff feedback and engagement and streamlined reporting for councils.

In addition, the need for staff to request data from management has been “virtually eliminated”, saving time and giving staff the tools they need to effect positive change.

“I deal directly with fitness, and can see the difference already. We have seen a gradual increase in membership

Top five tech tools for recreation facilities • L ive data. Live data reporting across multiple sites allows staff to view their impact on the business, increasing staff engagement and efficiency.

• F acility management software. Software packages such as Centaman and Envibe from Jonas Leisure offer reporting and analytics, swim school management, point of sale, membership data, customer relationship management and bookings all in one.

•W eb-based applications. CoursePro swim school software allows paperless online signup, while online roster systems allow more effective administration and communication with staff.

•A utomated monitoring systems include automated pool water quality testing software that makes data available via an iPad, computer terminal or website.

•W ireless systems can transmit data to a tablet or wristband alert, ensuring recreation facility staff can come to the rescue in the case of an incident.

numbers in fitness programmes, and they are now at the highest [level] they have ever been. The great thing is that once staff know how to use the system, they don’t have to ask. They can find the information themselves. It has cut down on a lot of administration time.” LG

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EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT

Sirens or texting?

What’s the best way to send out emergency alerts?

Last year’s November 14 earthquakes raised criticisms of Civil Defence texting alerts. Gary Lewis outlines the advantages and disadvantages of different ways of letting members of the public know what’s happening and what to do in an emergency.

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exting has pros and cons just as sirens do. An essential difference is that texting is a case of ‘catch me if you can’ because not all cell phones are switched on or heard. This is especially the case for tourists and people who need to turn their phones off or are out of range. Alternatively, sirens cannot be turned off and, if rotary air shock sirens are used, building and vehicle penetration is generally good. But sirens might not be heard aboard noisy public transport.

In the case of earthquake and tsunami, telling the public to rely solely on a natural warning, without the psychological support of additional alerting options, invites two extremes of behaviour – no action at all or a stampede.

The public ought not to be encumbered with the task of making the assessment of whether an earthquake qualifies as a natural warning. (A natural warning is defined as a long strong earthquake lasting for more than one minute, or one that it is difficult to stand up in.)

Unfortunately, there will always be a range of lay interpretations of what is long and strong, or how hard it is,

The danger of using public address loudspeakers Public address speakers or loudhailers making voice message announcements can be a hazard in their own right due to long atmospheric reverberation times that present garbled messages to listeners.

There are many anecdotal examples of this: one high-profile event being the Washington Navy yard shooting where public safety was compromised by police car loudhailers being unintelligible.

New Zealand police car public address speakers caused confusion during the 2007 Gisborne tsunami alert, resulting in people running towards potential danger because they misunderstood the garbled voice messages.

Voice messaging speakers also defeat the prime purpose of the partnership between sirens and broadcast radio.

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or isn’t, to remain standing in an earthquake. So, if the sirens are activated judiciously, members of the public can best get such assessments from broadcast radio.

Emergency managers are in a better position to make those decisions quickly without waiting for a science-based tsunami threat assessment.

So, texting and sirens ought to be activated together as soon as a Civil Defence controller considers the earthquake qualifies as a natural warning.

If texting, sirens and a natural warning were used in unison, they would complement each other as the disadvantages of each method cancel out those of the other methods when used simultaneously.

The sudden impact of air raid style rotary sirens produces a strong psychological effect, not only because their unique timbre is seldom heard, but also because of their ability to produce an eerie sound made up of odd-order harmonics that are exclusive to that type of siren. The effect is quite haunting and perhaps a bit frightening when two or three rotary sirens are heard cycling up and down together but out of step with each other.

Rotary siren potency will further improve as volunteer fire station sirens are gradually phased out and the unique sound of that type of siren has no competition.

MORE THAN TSUNAMI Contrary to popular belief, a range of potential emergencies is not confined to tsunami. The likelihood of tornado threat could increase with global warming. The spectrum of potential hazards also includes wildfire, flood, terrorist incident and a serious police emergency.

There is no great psychological impact with texting because it is bland and regularly heard, so people are already desensitised to it.

Various broadcast radio stations can compete for a siren’s attention so that if one local station gets knocked out, others will still command the sirens. The commands and regular test signals are audible chirps of about a half-second duration that do not impact significantly on existing radio programmes.

Unwise nomenclature The dangers of using loose terminology with respect to sirens should not be ignored. It is now deep rooted and will take time to fix if public education is to be effective as to the correct interpretation of the meaning of a siren, which is elementary – if you hear a siren, listen to broadcast radio to find out what’s up.

Some news media tend to refer to “tsunami sirens” instead of “emergency sirens”. Unfortunately, some Civil Defence agencies and commentators have made the same mistake in a range of published papers entitled “tsunami sirens”.

On the contrary, they can provide ongoing reassurance that the sirens are being regularly tested as people come to know the meaning of the sound.

Because sirens are exclusively a heads up for people to listen to broadcast radio or TV for information, the impact of a false alarm is less serious.

In the case of earthquake, there is no justification for waiting for formal tsunami verification. Sirens should be activated immediately when the earthquake qualifies as a natural warning. The main thing is to get an immediate heads up out to the community, which is the sole purpose of sirens.

Public broadcast radio networks are a potentially powerful Civil Defence tool, the resilience of which should not be underestimated. Studios are manned 24/7 and transmitters are continuously supported by backup generators and systems.

Each siren is programmed to listen out continuously, independently of its generator, for commands from a variety of local broadcast transmitters, rather than being attentive to just one. So, if one or more broadcast stations get knocked out, others take over via simple and / or logic.

NO MESSAGE Sirens have an intuitive advantage over other alerting methods because they project no message. They merely lead the community towards an animate information source that runs 24/7 across a network of broadcast studios with presenters that provide the comforting psyche of a human voice as frightening events are unfolding rapidly and people are terrified, especially elderly folk living alone.

There was some favourable media comment on the professionalism of the RNZ National Radio presenters on the night of November 14. The high standard of our broadcast presenters would make them easy to train for Civil Defence emergencies where calming influences have a role to play.

Resource Management Act There has evidently been significant expenditure caused by some councils perhaps getting a bit distracted by focusing too enthusiastically on RMA issues in relation to siren installations.

It might be alleviated by re-exploring legal opinion around section 330(1) (f) and section 330(1A), to see if an interpretation of the act can be applied to siren installations.

Conversely the inanimate clinical nature of a text message might or might not be instinctively trusted.

Sirens eliminate guesswork because they don’t convey any information other than “something’s up”.

FALSE ALARMS False alarms are a public desensitising risk spread equally across all forms of alerting, and are not confined to sirens and texting alone. Indeed, the lauded natural warning on the night of November 14 was a false alarm.

The official advice is to heed a natural warning and seek high ground. The November 14 earthquake qualified as a natural warning because it continued for more than one minute and was perceived as long and strong. However, the anticipated destructive tsunami did not arrive.

When some small waves did arrive on local coasts, it was some 50 or so minutes later. There would have been plenty of time to activate sirens, so this was a quake that initially qualified as a natural warning, then subsequently proved to be a false alarm.

But it did send a pivotal reminder that sirens are an effective warning tool for some local and regional source tsunami, not just distant-source events.

The evidence supporting that is now empirical. The impact of it should be a culture adjustment among critical decisionmakers and their advisers.

It is safer to err on the conservative side and activate sirens immediately upon receiving the natural warning rather than wait for science-based confirmation of an approaching tsunami when time is of the essence.

The only foreseeable consequence in the event it might prove to be a false alarm, could be a bit of mild embarrassment and a broadcast radio “stand down” announcement.

No reasonable citizen would criticise that if they get the information quickly.

It is infinitely more palatable than misjudging it the other way with destruction and loss of life, resulting in the public looking around for someone to blame. LG •G ary Lewis is a co-director at engineering solutions company Tactical Tooling. If you would like a copy of a report by Dr Con Wassillieff “Siren sound power levels” (2012, Marshall Day Acoustics) email Gary with “sound power levels” in the subject line. technicalsupport@paradise.net.nz

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SPECIAL FEATURE

N I S N O I T A V O N IN

Freshwater management

Integrated watershed thinking, new technologies and fresh approaches to source management are emerging as population growth and climate change place increasing demands on the freshwater management sector. By Patricia Moore.

O

pus International water sector leader Timothy Phelan says innovation in freshwater management is shifting to consider not only newer technologies but also fresh approaches to source management. That includes new and previously non-accessible resources and those threatened by changes stemming from population growth or climate change.

According to Timothy, who is based in Canada, “more than ever before, water stress and uncertainty about availability – even in ‘water rich’ areas like New Zealand and Canada – is requiring innovation: and not just in contaminant-specific technology requirements”.

Thinking about previously non-accessible resources – water reuse or reclamation, treatment of contaminated groundwater and desalinisation – as a recoverable resource is new, says Timothy.

“The days of plentiful surface water or pristine groundwater are slowly disappearing. And governments are turning to alternate places and associated technology to address that.”

The Groundwater Replenish System developed by the Orange County Water District in California is an example of how water is now being found through indirect potable water reuse from treated wastewater.

Secondary effluent received from a wastewater treatment plant is treated to near-distilled quality, before it is pumped

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to groundwater recharge basins which provide water security for the region.

In western Canada, previously overlooked sources include groundwater contaminated by arsenic and uranium.

Timothy says another area of innovation is in thinking more broadly about how freshwater management is not just a water-specific, or wastewater-specific, issue. “[This is about] recognising that water connects multiple industries, involves connected watersheds and must be thought of in terms of the land use and resource uses it comes in contact with.”

Integrated watershed thinking is demonstrated in the Okanagan Basin in British Columbia, an area that includes forestry, ranching, agriculture and recreation within watersheds that provide drinking water and receive treated wastewater.

“The region’s governments work together to address what are the highest risks and how each of these sectors is affected,” says Timothy. “Can dairy plant manure or rendering facilities create opportunities for increasing energy recovery while simultaneously removing point sources from the watershed?

“Can technologies from other industries be applied in new ways within the water or wastewater management field?”

Innovation in the area of low-energy or energy-neutral

Comox Lake, British Columbia, Canada. A historically pristine creek now has highly-variable water quality. This photo shows the impact of a combination of alpine lake management and strong rain storms now taking place in the watershed which led to water quality advisories and requirements for a new water treatment plant for the community.

treatment of wastewater will also gain increasing focus, he says.

“This will rely on lower energy treatments, hand-in-hand with energy recovery from biosolids.”

Innovative thinking in energy efficiency has always been a focus for the industry. But Timothy believes that in the next 10 years – as pressures for even lower-energy plants as well as space limitations for existing plants increase – game-changing technologies currently seen as too expensive, will have to move into full-scale implementation.

“Emerging technologies that meet the bill include the use of ‘granular’ activated sludge or magnetic particle ballast for increased solids separation efficiency, and adoption of energy recovery from biosolids at regional sludge super-centres, which maximise the capital investments for pre-treatment.”

(In the UK the sludge super-centre in Bristol processes around 40,000 metric tonnes of food wastes a year, diverted from landfill, and produces enough energy to power around 3000 homes.)

“Suddenly domestic source separated organics, fats, oils and grease, fish and chicken processing waste and expired groceries are becoming part of innovative freshwater thinking that increases the effectiveness of capital investments,” says Timothy.

Meanwhile, GHD principal water engineer Jivir Viyakesparan says that with water essential to New Zealand’s economic, environmental, cultural and social wellbeing, identifying the key risks and challenges of water management and the associated principles in dealing with them, requires innovative strategies and designs, from lot to city scales.

“An innovative approach that assists councils to manage these is the use of an integrated eWater SOURCE model,” he says.

“This platform has strong core functionality in hydrology, pollutant generation and water management, such as dams,

and can be easily customised via plug-ins which provide significant flexibility in adapting the model to a variety of water resource issues, such as required by council.”

March 22 is World Water Day, an international day to focus attention on the importance of freshwater and advocate for the sustainable management of freshwater resources.

As a nation surrounded by water, with most regions enjoying frequent and abundant helpings of it from above, we tend to take the availability and safety of what comes out of the taps for granted.

But as Timothy Phelan points out, mother nature is creating changes to which mankind must respond.

“Watersheds are demonstrating behaviours never experienced before,” he says. “And, as annual precipitation patterns change and shorter winter seasons take place, the characteristics of water quality, water availability and public health are different and require new decisions.”

Timothy argues that the cost of water and the cost of freshwater management in general must be valued and priced in the context of the innovations the sector is seeing.

People will need to ask themselves whether the value of tap water is more important than other services such as telecommunications.

“Alternative funding concepts between industry and government will help benefit the wider public but it’s only part of the answer,” he says.

Governments must increase attention in areas of public education, outreach and whole-of-life cost of service for freshwater management to remain a sustainable and essential service.” LG

COMING UP

>>

In the March issue • Innovations in street lighting • Innovations in water modelling

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SPECIAL FEATURE

N I S N O I T A V O N IN

Placemaking

Street furniture, mixed-use spaces, pop-up art installations and guerrilla gardeners are all part of the mix as smart councils work more collaboratively with communities to create better places and spaces. By Patricia Moore.

S

mall towns to big cities are all prime for placemaking. It’s the practice of involving local communities in developing innovative ways to shape spaces for everyone to use and enjoy. Its opposite is merely hoping that solutions decided by city hall will appeal. As a group of mayors in the US puts it, it’s about “turning a neighbourhood, town or city from a place you can’t wait to get through, to one you never want to leave”.

Local bodies are increasingly turning to placemaking as they work to transform, reinvent and revitalise urban environments or put strategies in place to ensure new developments become genuine communities, not simply a bunch of dwellings.

“Placemaking,” says Frith Walker, manager place making for Panuku Development Auckland, “is a key tool in creating good healthy public spaces.” Innovation, she says, is “central to the need to continuously grow places in ways that identify with the people who use them”.

Actions can be as simple as providing chairs that enable people to sit and enjoy existing green spaces; as complex as providing the year-round programme of cultural and socialising events which have turned the Lawn on D in Boston into a city icon.

Closer to home, placemaking has transformed Adelaide from Australia’s ‘wallflower’ to ‘wicked-sexy city’.

The term ‘placemaking’ is not always fully understood.

Adele Cubitt, strategist at Fresh Concept, says after seven years working in the area, it’s only in the past few years people have stopped thinking they supply hardware.

“Placemaking is a process, a strategy, bespoke, with no one way of doing things. The methods, and who is doing it, are evolving innovatively,” she says.

“It’s no longer viewed as just a public sector responsibility because any shared space is ripe for placemaking. Commercial property, brands, business associations and private developments are all looking at it as a way to draw people in, to provide a holistic experience and connect with people.”

Frith says that both technique and approach are important.

“Digital tools including social media are central to the advertising of a space. Social media is also a great way to receive and analyse feedback, then adjust and adapt plans.

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“Our approach is to let a place speak for itself and plan around that, creating plans to allow for adjustment and development that caters to the growth and change of an environment or space.”

Isthmus Design director Duncan Ecob says innovation can be found in many parts of urban design and placemaking. He cites recognising and designing the urban environment as a multilayered, integrated system, as an example.

“This will push innovation to deliver better value which is not confined to economics or exchange but encompasses use and efficiency, identity, and environmental, cultural and social value.”

Frith suggests that ultimately this should mean less call on government resources across the board. “Placemaking is a mechanism that is based around the art of collaboration between the people, government and developers. More holistic, direct interactions will mean less dependency, happier people and good, liveable cities.”

Adele Cubitt agrees councils don’t have to regard placemaking as something they do alone. “They can enable, encourage, facilitate and / or partner with different sectors for better public outcomes.”

She points out this already happens in a number of ways. “It

Knitting communities together • Better workplaces – good placemaking can lead to increased tenant demand and happier workers, and revitalise a precinct; • Active transport modes – walking and cycling within neighbourhoods as a response to mixed-use development, are strengthening communities; • Technology – continues to push the boundaries. Digital methods of communication are among the most innovative tools for placemaking. They are extending a physical space into the cyber world to help grow communities; • Technology is also affecting the use of retail space and methods of delivery; and • Brands are discovering placemaking can provide a single platform that covers marketing, sponsorship and social responsibility.

Enjoying the light installations as part of Stellar at Auckland's Smales Farm.

Another Friday night for the Silo Park community of good times.

can also be key in growing and shaping communities. Councils should look more to the long game – what change really looks like, what they can do or influence, and who can help.”

Local bodies may need to be more flexible with the processes they have in place if they want to enable communities to take the lead.

Duncan notes collaboration will be a new mind-set for many, “embracing opportunities and seeing how they can be delivered by acting as facilitators with partners, rather than being required to deliver the outcome”.

He says small-scale pilot projects, which enable measurement of outcomes, are proving a successful approach.

“Being nimble and recognising pilots to be scalable will be a significant challenge.”

In Auckland, Smales Farm is taking a placemaking approach to creating a new way of working and living; the Christmas Tree Forest in a reused silo on Auckland’s waterfront was a successful activation, and major infrastructure works in the city have seen pop-up events boosting activity and vitality as closed roads became basketball courts or temporary parks.

“Art events,” says Duncan, “either one-offs or on a more regular basis, meet with large levels of participation. The

Hobsonville Point Farmers Market.

Serpentine Gallery pavilion in London is a good example as is the biennial Waiheke sculpture trail.”

Adele believes the coolest ideas are the bespoke ones. “That’s what placemaking is about – what works in that space, for that community, like the guerrilla gardener in Los Angeles who planted vegetables in vacant lots, traffic medians, along the kerb, in an effort to offer an alternative to fast food in communities where ‘drive-thrus are killing more people than drive-bys’.”

But these are parts of a whole, she says. “It’s not about putting lipstick on a gorilla. Placemaking is about real change so there needs to be an end goal and ongoing assessment.

“People want more from their lives; ironically, social innovation through placemaking is really about people bringing things back to their roots, creating a village, a community where they can live richer lives.” LG • Patricia Moore is a freelance writer. mch@xtra.co.nz

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www.localgovernmentmag.co.nz For related articles go to our website. Search: Placemaking

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TECHNICAL BRIEFINGS The following paper was presented at the Water New Zealand Annual Conference.

DEVELOPMENTS IN SURVEY TECHNOLOGY AND ITS APPLICATION TO FRESHWATER ENVIRONMENTS

Left: Seven metre vessel with survey-grade multi-beam echo sounder fitted.

Above: Watercare’s Lower Huia Dam.

Declan Stubbing, Jimmy Van Der Pauw (both senior surveyors) and Kevin Smith (business manager) [all from Discovery Marine]

ABSTRACT The latest survey sensors capable of capturing high resolution data, combined with survey expertise, processing and visualisation software, are now being used to map freshwater environments. High density point cloud data acquired through simultaneous and seamless data collection techniques is now possible above and below the waterline.

The Rotorua Te Arawa Lakes Programme is working to protect and restore the water quality in 12 Rotorua lakes.

Since 2014 the University of Waikato and Discovery Marine have been using a high resolution Multibeam Echo Sounder (MBES) to accurately survey a number of the lakes. A practical and flexible approach was adopted to enable effective use of commercial resources to produce 3D bathymetric surfaces of the lake beds.

High resolution mapping of Watercare’s fresh water reservoirs using MBES and laser scanners has enabled the production of 3D fly throughs revealing remarkable detail of the flooded terrain. It has provided Watercare with a baseline data set from which to better understand their assets and the impact of the environment.

Our full paper provides an overview of the technology, processes and deliverables for these two projects demonstrating the wider applicability of the technology to support regulatory compliance, asset management and environmental planning.

INTRODUCTION It wasn’t that long ago that hydrographic surveying of freshwater bodies was limited to single beam echosounders, sidescan sonars, or in a lot of cases, a chainman equipped

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with a prism pole doing their best not to get washed away in a river current.

Our full paper aims to: • present an overview of current technology within the hydrographic surveying and mobile mapping industries; • highlight the level of processing required to manage large multipoint data sets; and • provide local examples of new types of products which aim to support regulatory compliance, asset management and environmental planning.

Technological advancements in survey equipment, acquisition software and smaller on-water survey platforms have allowed for more data to be gathered to a high degree of accuracy. Hydrographic surveyors are now able to collect high-resolution bathymetric data sets in areas that were previously difficult to access with traditionally bulky survey equipment and large vessels.

The improvements in field data acquisition have gone hand in hand with the ability of software applications to process and manage large data sets with a high degree of agility on smaller computing platforms. It is now possible to load and manage very large point cloud data sets, within PC-based 3D visualisation tools similar to high end gaming technologies and GIS software packages.

Our full paper describes the marriage of several of these emerging technologies to map, visualise and create accurate easy-to-use baseline datasets of freshwater bodies, surrounding topography and any associated infrastructure.

By creating more detailed and easy-to-use baseline datasets engineers, scientists and managers are able to make informed decisions on environmental impacts and asset management. LG

>>

www.localgovernmentmag.co.nz Go to our website for the full paper.

Search: bitly/TechBriefings_SurveyTechnology

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MICHELLE HEWITT / ON BUILDING CONTROL AUTHORITIES SE N IOR CONSU LTANT, MOR R ISON LOW. m.hewitt@morrisonlow.com

Police or tour guides?

Let’s re-think the role of Building Control Authorities.

I BE PART OF THE SUCCESS OF A PROJECT BY TALKING THROUGH POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS, WHILE STILL ENSURING YOU ARE UNDERTAKING YOUR STATUTORY RESPONSIBILITIES.

t’s tough being a Building Control Authority (BCA). The BCA has the responsibility of administering the requirements of the Building Act, Building Regulations and the Building Code, understanding the consequences of failure, the potential impact on human life, current and future homeowners and on the financial position of the council if something goes wrong.

With all that responsibility, who’d work in building control? With so much at stake BCAs have no option but to be the building police, right?

Do BCAs have to act like police?

Recently I talked with a customer of a BCA and they asked – why can’t the BCA be more like tour guides rather than police? The customer described a discussion they had with a Building Control Officer (BCO) when they had approached the council for advice on a building consent, the result being that they were told to go find the information / solution themselves. But they had no idea where to start.

Another customer talked about being frustrated when they wanted advice on how to comply with particular building requirements, but the council said they couldn’t help because they could not be the designer.

As a customer who may or may not be familiar with the Building Act, what are they supposed to do? Isn’t the council supposed to be customer focused and there to help?

It’s a fine line for BCA staff. They want to ensure quality applications are received and that buildings are built to the consented plans and in compliance with the Building Act. It’s not the role of a BCA to design a solution for a customer. But shouldn’t council want projects to succeed?

Ensuring the success of projects has an economic benefit for individuals and the community. So how do we enable success and also continue to be an effective regulator?

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Is a positive approach possible?

This is where the concept of the tour guide comes in. Some BCOs say their role is focused on compliance or enforcement. And because of this it is a negative role. But I challenge that. Why can’t a BCO have a positive approach to compliance and regulation?

By being a good building tour guide you can enable development to succeed while managing your regulatory role.

You can help customers to navigate through various sources of information, regulations and code requirements by asking a series of questions that enable the customer to reach an answer themselves.

It could start with asking the customer about the potential options and whether that particular product or design will work. This is a positive investment of time that builds rapport. The council is seen to be part of the solution – not part of the problem. It’s a winner for the BCO’s reputation as well as council's.

Working together Working together is a better approach than just telling the customer they have failed an inspection for whatever reason. Delays impact on the overall success of the project and the livelihoods of all those trades people involved. Have you ever had to wait a week for concrete only to fail the inspection hours before it is due to be poured? Imagine the stress.

I’m not saying a BCO should not fail inspections. But I am saying that you can be part of the success of a project by talking through possible solutions, while still ensuring you are undertaking your statutory responsibilities.

So, the next time you are asked for help or see something that’s not quite right – why not try being a tour guide, positively contribute to the success of a project and leave your police hat behind? LG

ELIZABETH HUGHES / LOCAL GOVERNMENT 101 E LIZAB ETH H UG H ES COM M U N ICATION. www.elizabethhughes.co.nz

Smart and smarter How to handle local government’s anti-logic paradox.

I THE MESSY DEMOCRATIC PROCESS OF BRINGING CHALLENGING QUESTIONS, OPPOSING INFORMATION AND PUBLIC SENTIMENT, MATTERS TO DECISIONMAKING TOO.

recently overheard a senior local government manager say: “If we can’t convince them with logic, we’ll get them with the legislation.” In other words, we will eventually bully them into making the ‘right’ decision. This led me to consider how opinions, myths (some would call them untruths), conspiracies and emotional narratives (the vibe) are currently trumping straightforward, logical and fact-based discourse.

Recent international events have created a higher profile for this phenomenon. But, to some extent, the idea that logic alone does not necessarily triumph over the democratic process has always played a part in council decision-making. This is not a bad thing. It just is what it is.

However, this propensity for elected members to sometimes make decisions based on a popular or particular vibe frustrates the hell out of those who can clearly see a more rational and logical solution. This applies equally to certain sectors of the community as it does to some local government staff.

Local government employs some of the smartest people I know (not smart alecs but smart people) who are incredibly knowledgeable in their area of expertise, passionate about their job and totally dedicated to the view that there is a right and efficient way to achieve the task at hand.

They are also people who totally thrive on the linear thinking, systems and legislation that underpin their complex organisation and its business.

Not surprisingly these same smart people may not equally embrace and / or respect the other side of the business and consider elected representatives to be a handbrake on the logical and rational way to do business.

At the end of 2016 I was privileged to work with a wide range of councils and elected representatives through their induction programmes.

During these sessions the participants were invited to say what things staff can do better to support them to make the best possible decisions.

The following is a summary of their answers.

Give me the chance to be heard Consistently – and without fail – elected members wanted the space to be heard. Not in a grandstanding way (although some do enjoy this) but in a way that enables them to express their views and the views of their constituents.

While they realise that sometimes these views are unformed, and do not fit the current plans or strategies (or procedures), they very much want the opportunity to share them.

Help me to do the best job I can Mayors and councillors (noting that many elected representatives are also very smart people) are likely to be successful in their other life, will be thoroughly engaged with a range of specific sectors / stakeholders and / or issues, and will be well aware of the limitations the community might see regarding even the most excellent proposals and plans.

They want management to support their varying levels of ability, to better enable them to positively ‘sell’ what the council does, and to provide them with the tools to develop competence and understanding so they can do their job well.

Bring us the views of the community Elected members appreciate they are only there thanks to the few eligible voters who bothered.

They get this and are passionate about wanting this to be different. So they expressed, with many innovative ideas, the strong desire to find ways that will capture community views to better inform their decision-making (albeit sometimes wanting this engagement to enable a specific view to get the traction that they firmly believe it warrants).

These three things seemed like very smart ideas to me. And not one of them was about bringing more evidence and logic to the debate. Instead they focused on wanting to be engaged with, and informed about community views and perspectives – to enhance, not detract from, the intelligence provided by staff.

Managers like the one quoted above sometimes believe that elected members are a barrier to good decision-making (or, at the very least, to efficient decision-making).

However, I would say the messy democratic process of bringing challenging questions, opposing information and public sentiment, matters to decision-making too.

Sometimes this is just being smart in a different kind of way. LG

>>

www.localgovernmentmag.co.nz For more articles by this writer go to our website.

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FRANA DIVICH / ON LEGAL ISSUES PARTN E R, H EAN EY & PARTN E R S. frana.divich@heaneypartners.com

Stop the clock Assessor’s report stops time running in all jurisdictions.

A THE GOOD NEWS FOR COUNCILS IS THAT THE SAME ‘STOP THE CLOCK’ PROVISION WILL APPLY WHEN THEY COME TO JOIN CONSTRUCTION PARTIES TO A COURT PROCEEDING WHERE THE OWNER IS RELYING UPON AN ASSESSOR’S REPORT TO STOP TIME RUNNING.

judgment released by the Supreme Court on December 22, 2016 provides leaky building owners, who have an assessor’s report and an eligible claim, a choice of jurisdictions where one may not have existed before. The issue considered (in Olivia Waiyee Lee v Whangarei District Court [2016] NZSC 173) was whether, pursuant to s 37(1) of the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Act 2006 (WHRSA) the owner’s application for an assessor’s report “stopped the clock” for limitation purposes for not only claims brought in the Weathertight Homes Tribunal (WHT) but also in the courts.

The owner, Olivia Lee, built a house between 2007 and 2008. It suffered leaks right from the start. On August 12, 2008 she applied for an assessor’s report. In October 2008 the assessor confirmed that her house suffered from numerous weathertightness defects and that it met the eligibility criteria for a claim to be brought.

Since 2008 Lee had been involved in a number of proceedings against various parties including the builder and the cladding installer. On March 10, 2010 she brought adjudication proceedings in the WHT naming several parties including the council.

In March 2013 the WHT terminated Lee’s claim because of a provision in the WHRSA that prevents a claim continuing where the subject matter of the claim is being arbitrated or heard in a court. The WHT held that the subject matter of her claim in the WHT was closely related to her proceedings against the builder and the cladding installer and terminated her claim.

Lee then commenced a proceeding in the High Court against the council. The High Court found that the proceeding was brought out of time and summary judgment was given in favour of the council. This was on the basis of the High Court’s interpretation of s 37(1) of the WHRSA, which provides that the filing of an application by a home owner for an assessor’s report has the same effect, for the purposes of

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the Limitation Act 1950, as filing proceedings in a court.

Lee argued that the proceedings in the High Court are to be treated as having been “brought”, for the purposes of the Limitation Act 1950, on August 12, 2008 when she applied for the assessor’s report. The Limitation Act 1950 provides that an action founded on tort “shall not be brought after the expiration of six years from the date on which the cause of action accrued”.

The High Court rejected Lee’s argument and held that her cause of action accrued before May 21, 2008, so she was out of time. The Court of Appeal agreed with the High Court.

The Supreme Court found that the purpose of s 37(1) was to “stop the clock” on limitation while the house is assessed, allowing home owners to make informed decisions about their options. If s 37(1) is interpreted too narrowly those with leaky homes risk falling into procedural traps where their legal claims become time-barred while they are pursuing remedies.

This would not accord with the WHRSA’s purpose of providing leaky home owners access to speedy, flexible and cost-effective procedures for the assessment and resolution of claims.

The decision means that home owners with assessor’s reports, can rely on them to stop time running in all jurisdictions. It will not cause an increase in claims, as most of those claims already exist, with home owners waiting to make an election as to whether to pursue their claim. It will probably cause an increase in those pending claims being brought in the courts instead of the WHT. The good news for councils is that the same “stop the clock” provision will apply when they come to join construction parties to a Court proceeding where the owner is relying upon an assessor’s report to stop time running. Prior to this judgment councils may have been time barred from joining others as they are usually the last party in time to take steps. LG

PETER SILCOCK / FROM CIVIL CONTRACTORS NZ CH I E F EXECUTIVE, CIVI L CONTRACTOR S N EW Z EALAN D. peter@civilcontractors.co.nz

Time for long-term plans Councils’ critical services require skilled, educated workforce.

W RATHER THAN AUTOMATICALLY SETTLING ON THE MINIMUM 10 YEARS, COUNCILS SHOULD BE ASKING THEMSELVES WHETHER THEIR LONG-TERM PLANS SHOULD COVER EVEN LONGER PERIODS.

ith new councillors now on board and the rigours of a local government election behind us, 2017 will be a year in which councils get stuck into pithy issues and debates as the process of developing long-term plans (LTPs) gets underway.

The intent behind these plans is to ensure decision-making and activities don’t bounce around based on the outcomes of the three-year election cycle.

When you consider that most of the services that councils provide are reliant on infrastructure that has a life that far exceeds both the three-year electoral cycle and the minimum LTP term of 10 years, the need for LTPs is pretty obvious.

In fact, rather than automatically settling on the minimum 10 years, councils should be asking themselves whether their plans should cover even longer periods.

One of the core purposes of an LTP is to “describe the community outcomes of the local authority’s district or region”. In that sense, an LTP is a strategic document that encapsulates the needs, wants and desires of the community.

It looks forward to understand future demographics, the social and physical environment, new technologies and how we will work and play in the future.

The outcomes the community identifies provide the focus for future council decisions and activities.

This makes an LTP a very powerful and important document.

While the plan is all about who and what we want to be, it also needs to be firmly anchored to the assets and resources the community has available or in which it is willing to invest.

As with many public consultations, the 2017 process is likely to bring out every man (women and child) and their dog (cat or rooster) wanting to push their own pet project. At the same time, it is likely to be light on input from the majority of the community.

Local government communication has taken a big step up over recent years. But, for most, the biggest challenge around LTPs will still be how to get effective community engagement.

I suspect that there will be many minds engaged

on that challenge over the next 12 months. But a big part of the answer will be “less is more”. An effective approach is the creation of small pieces of well-crafted graphic communication that engage individuals so they immediately understand issues and can provide feedback on the spot.

This initial information should also invite individuals and community groups to take graduated steps into opportunities to contribute in more detail.

Information and discussions around the LTP need to ensure that the community understands the critical nature of what councils do. Some of the services provided are basic necessities and sometimes don’t get a lot of discussion. That does not mean they are unimportant. In fact it means the exact opposite.

LTP discussions need to deal with the provision of critical services, and the maintenance and development of the assets that support those services, before considering other “optional” extras.

Part of that consideration needs to look at how these critical services will be delivered and how the assets owned by councils will be managed and maintained in the future.

Councils are very significant buyers of these services. So it makes sense to take a strategic approach to supporting the development of people capability both internally and within the contracted suppliers.

A very good start would be ensuring council procurement policies and documentation require information from the bidding contractors on their investment in the development and education of their people.

CCNZ’s Civil Trades initiative has been created to recognise the skill, expertise and professionalism of people who build and maintain our civil infrastructure. The qualification also provides a clear career path for people starting out in the industry. It is good for contractors and asset owners.

It is highly likely that councils will be delivering very similar services in 10 or 20 years’ time.

So having suitably-qualified and experienced people available seems to be a very good strategic move. LG

FEBRUARY 2017 LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE

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LAWRENCE YULE / FROM LGNZ PR ESI DE NT, LOCAL G OVE R N M E NT N EW Z EALAN D (LG NZ). lawrence.yule@hdc.govt.nz

The year ahead Change is a constant. But big issues continue to challenge.

B GIVEN ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR WATER QUANTITY, INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT, CIVIL DEFENCE AND LAND USE PLANNING, CLIMATE CHANGE WILL BE A KEY PRIORITY IN THE YEARS AHEAD.

rexit and the election of Donald Trump ensured 2016 was a year for the record books. We all know change is a constant but those particular twists I think threw us all. New Zealand wasn’t without its upheavals either.

Although politically less extreme than what we saw in the US and UK, John Key’s surprise resignation at the end of last year did indeed change the political landscape in New Zealand.

After eight years of a distinctive style of central government and with a general election in 2017 we may be looking at a significantly different picture.

His decision resulted in a swathe of other departures from the national political scene, including that of the Minister of Local Government Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga. We have subsequently welcomed Anne Tolley to the role and look forward to working together. Minister Tolley brings a strong set of skills to the role.

We also welcome Jacqui Dean to the role of Associate Minister.

In local government the 2016 local elections saw a significant number of new faces join the sector and this is reflected in the make-up of LGNZ’s national council, the board which acts as the governing body of LGNZ and sets, guides and oversees its policy and advocacy work.

A number of contests for seats on the council showed that people are keen to serve in the national capacity and I am thrilled with the calibre of its members. Our new vice president, Dunedin City mayor Dave Cull, is an experienced and capable leader, and in the wider national council we have a strong mix of people to guide the sector.

The council has now begun work on strategy development and business planning for the new triennium, and will be setting new policy priorities and goals to reflect the new circumstances

New Zealand faces compared to three years ago.

These cyclical changes are part and parcel of the democratic process. But despite these shifts many of the long-term strategic issues we face remain, and for local government a number of key issues continue to demand work.

New Zealand experienced another geological reminder that the country needs to be better prepared for natural disasters.

The Kaikoura quake further accentuated the need for a Local Government Risk Agency, the model for which LGNZ developed over 2016 and has proposed to central government. This has received an encouraging response from government and we will continue to work towards achieving this.

Mitigating and adapting to climate change is a significant and strategic piece of work for local government in a way that it wasn’t even two years ago. Many of the responses needed to protect communities will be made at a local level and helping Kiwis understand the implications of life in a changing climate will be a major focus for LGNZ in the coming triennium and beyond.

Given its implications for water quantity, infrastructure investment, civil defence and land use planning, climate change will be a key priority in the years ahead.

Regional economic development, sustainable local government funding, having a fit-for-purpose resource management system, creating stronger public engagement in local democracy and lifting the reputation of local government also remain as key work streams.

The forthcoming election and global ructions mean we should continue to hold tight and be ready for more change and new challenges.

I wish you all the best for a prosperous 2017. LG

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Key policy projects continue for local government Local Government New Zealand’s new National Council has begun work on strategy development and business planning for the new triennium.

This will see the Council setting policy priorities and goals for LGNZ to reflect the issues New Zealand faces compared to three years ago. The work will be informed by the LGNZ 2050 dialogue, designed to assist councils prepare for the shifts and challenges expected to impact on New Zealand and our towns, cities and regions by 2050.

While this may mean some policy priorities will be brought to the fore – climate change, and freshwater quality and quantity for example – there will also be an ongoing focus on initiatives to lift the value and service we provide to our communities.

As such, several pieces of key strategic LGNZ work will continue to remain of high priority in the coming term and beyond:

Key policy projects The LGNZ 3 Waters project

The LGNZ 3 Waters project, which undertook detailed research into the state of our underground assets and has made recommendations for the future – the first time there has ever been a comprehensive picture of the condition of local infrastructure. This project awaits the Government’s perspective on the recommendations made.

The LGNZ Funding Review

The LGNZ Funding Review, which highlighted opportunities for councils to increase economic performance and identified the funding tools and incentives which are necessary to enable this to happen. LGNZ shares the view of the New Zealand Initiative that ultimately many of the challenges facing local government could be best addressed by re-examining the nature of the incentives to which local government has traditionally responded and to then alter those incentives to get better outcomes over time.

The Local Government Excellence Programme

The Local Government Excellence Programme is designed to lift the performance and reputation of the sector through improved value and service, comparative information on performance and improved awareness about the role of local government. This is an incentives based programme designed to highlight both good and less than ideal performance and, through a customer-focussed transparent approach, create incentives on councils to constantly strive to deliver better value for their communities.

The Local Government Risk Agency

The Local Government Risk Agency is a joint project with the Government to increase local government awareness of risk and strengthen community resilience.

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EDITOR

Adult Learners Elected members making the most of their learning and experience If you’re an elected member, you will have completed a large portion of your induction programme and be starting to apply your skills, knowledge and networks at Council.

You will be facing a variety of local government situations and activities which may challenge you and cause you to reflect on your own areas of competency, and what else you may need to learn. Adults pursuing professional development approach their learning needs in a completely different way than those in the environment of a classroom or lecture.

Malcolm Knowles (1913 – 1997) was an educator well known for his work in adult education. Knowles made five assumptions about the characteristics of adult learners that are different from the assumptions about child learners. See if recognise your experience in these.

1. Self-concept As a person matures, his/her self-concept moves from one of being a dependent personality toward one of being a self-directed human being.

2. Adult Learner Experience As a person matures, he/she accumulates a growing reservoir of experience that becomes an increasing resource for learning.

3. Readiness to Learn As a person matures, his/her readiness to learn becomes oriented increasingly to the developmental tasks of his/her social roles.

4. Orientation to Learning As a person matures, his/her time perspective changes from one of postponed application of knowledge to immediacy of application, and accordingly his/her orientation toward learning shifts from one of subjectcenteredness to one of problem-centeredness.

5. Motivation to Learn As a person matures, the motivation to learn is internal (Knowles 1984:12).

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Added to this, in 1984 Knowles suggested four principles that are applied to adult learning.

1. Adults need to be involved in the planning and evaluation of their instruction.

2. Experience (including mistakes) provides the basis for the learning activities.

3. Adults are most interested in learning subjects that have immediate relevance and impact to their job or personal life.

4. Adult learning is problem-centred rather than content-oriented.

So what does this mean for elected members? If you attended an EquiP induction workshop you will have received a Skills Matrix and started to consider your own Personal Development Plan. More detail about this is contained within the GROW handbook, of which we still have a few copies available for purchase. Let’s consider an example of making use of this tool.

Example John Smith is a new councillor in a provincial city. He has come to Council with an extensive business and community background, but is new to politics and has highlighted the competency of ‘political acumen’ as an area of high priority for his development.

Political acumen can be defined as: > Understand the political environment as well as the respective roles of governors and management; > Use influence and persuasion to mobilise and pro-actively engage in the political environment; > Manoeuvre through complex political situations effectively and respectfully; or > Be aware of all stakeholders and their different needs.

Adult Learners Assumptions we can make about John’s learning Selfconcept

John will do what he needs to be the best he can be.

Adult Learner Experience

John will always consider what he learns about political acumen against what he knows already, aligned to previous experiences.

“Oh that is like the time I had to canvas my work mates to get an agreement for….”

This aids learning retention and reminds John that, as he has mastered this aspect before, he can do so again.

Readiness to Learn

John is focussed on learning the political aspect of his council role to ensure he is effective in his elected term.

He knows success in this area will help him remain effective on council for the long term.

Orientation to Learning

John needs to engage with the community. He plans to improve his political competency before his next meeting.

Motivation to Learn

John is aware of what he needs to learn and keen to make it happen.

Example of adult learning principles in action John talks to his chief executive and mayor/chair. They talk about his desire to improve his political acumen competency. They agree that a good place to start is for John to attend the Political Decision Making workshop. John finds the workshop uesful. He takes a lot of notes, asks questions about his own situation, and develops a community intelligence matrix to help him engage with those he needs to. Afterwards he attends a community meeting.

Later, John reflects that the meeting had been a mostly positive experience, but there are a few things he might do differently at the next one. He noted that an experienced colleague, Mere had engaged the audience and answered their questions with a confidence that he thought he was lacking.

John decides to watch and learn from Mere at the next meeting.

Over a coffee he congratulates Mere on her skill. She tells him about her own early experiences, and offers to give him some tips before and after the next community meeting. John also talks to his mayor/chair who gives some additional advice. Prior to the next meeting John spends time preparing. He considers and includes in his preparation his experiences and learning from his conversations and the workshop he attended. After that meeting John is starting to feel more confident about his skill. With more reflection and feedback, he now realises that his presentation skills could be improved, and he registers for that workshop.

What can you do? > Take ownership of your learning needs and identify your areas of focus. > Create your own Personal Development Plan and discuss this with your CE and mayor/chair. > Participate in learning activities that suit your needs, be they workshops, webinars, coaching, reading or experiential practice opportunities. > Reflect on your progress and seek feedback about your actions. > Keep at it until you consider yourself competent (no matter how long this takes). > Consider what else you need to learn. > Repeat as required.

EquiP offers a range of learning solutions in various delivery mediums.

Check out our website for more details. lgnz.co.nz/home/equip/professional-development-offerings/ EquiP is also building a range of learning solutions for you to access as and when you need. We will keep adding to these so check our website regularly. lgnz.co.nz/home/equip/newly-elected-members-2016/inductionextras/ If you have any questions about your development or would like to talk to us about participating in or hosting a learning activity, please contact us at equip.pd@lgnz.co.nz

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The Final Word Empowering communities through localism LGNZ’s guiding vision is ‘local democracy powering community and national success’. So any proposals that will help create stronger local decision-making are welcomed and worth debating.

Late last year public policy think tank The New Zealand Initiative released a report calling for changes to the Local Government Act 2002 which would put clear responsibilities and accountabilities on local government. But rather than creating more pressures on local service delivery it is envisaged these changes would instead allow for greater innovation, increased public accountability and better enable the creation of local solutions to local problems.

government is responsible for specific services, who is driving costs, or who is setting quality standards.

New Zealand has one of the most centralised forms of government in the Western world – New Zealand local government plays a significantly smaller role in community decision making compared to local government systems elsewhere. It is our belief that greater decision-making power, and the responsibility that comes with it, should be conferred to local government and the communities it serves.

The 2016 local elections showed us that we need a range of responses to get people more actively engaged in their community’s issues. With a 42 per cent turnout at the 2016 elections it is clear that more work and new approaches are needed to not only lift that number but ensure people are involved in the process throughout the term. Bringing greater decisionmaking power to local communities could be one piece of the puzzle in achieving this.

“Localism” is the belief that communities, through their elected representatives, should have the right to make decisions about matters that are fundamentally local or regional in nature and, by implication, central governments should focus on matters that are of national importance.

The Initiative’s paper, Restoring local government accountability, was the third in its Local Manifesto series and offers valuable recommendations for improving the performance of both local and central government in New Zealand.

LGNZ is particularly interested in creating greater accountability and transparency around which arm of government, local or central, is responsible for what. We believe greater clarity is needed and the Initiative’s suggestions for achieving this, such as making councils fully responsible for all the services they currently provide, are worth considering. The report argues there is an “accountability gap” between policy makers and communities which makes it hard for people to know which sphere of

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Delegating more power to councils and requiring them to fully consult their communities through mechanisms like referenda could also be useful for engaging communities in the important but often poorly understood issues they face.

Delivering better outcomes for our communities will require change from both local and central government, and we look forward to progressing the ideas in the report with The New Zealand Initiative, and local and central government.

< It is envisaged changes would instead allow for greater innovation, increased public accountability and better enable the creation of local solutions to local problems. >

Coming to NZ in 2017

ShoulderMaster is Australia’s first universal skid steer paver attachment designed specifically for the purposes of rehabilitating and widening the shoulders of roads.

The ShoulderMaster is an award winning attachment that has been recognised by the Australian Government as an innovative road safety solution to assist in the reduction of fatalities and serious injuries on Australian roads.

· ABA100 Winner for New Product Innovation in the Australian Business Awards 2016 · Special Commendation for Innovation, Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, CIVENEX, 2015 · Queensland Government Encouragement Award, Australian Road Safety Awards 2015 · Finalist, Product Innovation Award 2015, Earthmover and Civil Contractor Awards · Finalist, Good Design Award 2016

Great leadership starts with determination

Make 2017 the year you determine how to make your leadership career fly.

SOLGM’s LGLeadershipPathways initiative delivers a whole range of leadership development opportunities to those at all levels of Local Government:

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For those looking to step into their first management role we have a new Emerging Leaders Development Programme, an intensive yet fun three day introduction to leadership development.

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Our LGAcceleratedLeadership programme is a five month programme for mid-tier managers. We’ve been running it successfully over the past year in regions around the country.

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Our LGExecutiveLeaders programme is a 12 month programme that uses brain based science and is for managers already in senior positions. The programme’s next cohort will start in July 2017.

Find out about these programmes – for you or your staff, and all of our other leadership development opportunities at SOLGM.org.nz, email info@SOLGM.org.nz or phone 04 978 1280.