NZ Local Government November 1611

NZ LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE VOL 53 • NOVEMBER 2016 • $8.95

Message from

THE MINISTER

Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga to newly-elected members p14

ELECTION PROMISES

PARKS OF THE FUTURE

GOOD SPORTS

TECHNICAL BRIEFINGS

What exactly can new councillors do? p16

New technologies that will change how people play p30

Auckland’s $190 million green plans p32

Stream waterway design p39 Minister of Local Government Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga

We’re getting our members

with

OVER 60 parking friendly events

A key element of the NZMCA’s Motorhome Friendly scheme is the Summer Events Calendar. At no cost to the 41 Motorhome Friendly towns, the Calendar links a huge range of events (9 of which are featured here) with handy, lowcost parking and is widely promoted to our members and other travellers.

It’s all part of the NZMCA’s long-term goal to create an off-thebeaten track infrastructure which ensures the benefits of Motorhome Tourism are shared with communities throughout the country.

mhftowns.com

Brought to you by

The New Zealand Motor Caravan Association Inc.

mhftowns.com/events | nzmca.org.nz

IN THIS ISSUE NZ LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE

CONTENTS IN THIS ISSUE P16 REGULARS 4 Editor’s Letter 6 In Brief 13 Events 47 LGNZ

COLUMNISTS

P30

42 Helmut Modlik: On Training 43 Jeremy Elwood: On the Funny Stuff 44 Sarah Macky: On Legal Issues 45 Peter Silcock: From Civil Contractors New Zealand 46 Lawrence Yule: From LGNZ

REPORTS 14 M ESSAGE FROM THE MINISTER Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga to newly-elected members 16 E LECTION PROMISES What exactly can new councillors do?

P36

P22

18 M ASTERS OF THEIR OWN FISCAL DESTINY? Lessons from local government in the UK 22 C H-CH-CH-CHANGES Futurist Thomas Frey lays out the future of work and technology for councils 25 S AFETY CHECKING New obligations for councils under the Vulnerable Children’s Act 26 INFRASTRUCTURE CONTRACTS The pros and cons of NEC3 vs the NZS:3910 Conditions of Contract for Building and Civil Engineering Construction 30 PARKS OF THE FUTURE New technologies that will change how people play 32 G OOD SPORTS Auckland’s $190 million green plans 36 I NFRASTRUCTURE Boffa Miskell’s projects combine landscape design, low-impact stormwater design and ecology 38 M AKING THE HORSE DRINK How to embed training in council practices 39 T ECHNICAL BRIEFINGS Stream waterway design: Beca, EOS Ecology and Boffa Miskell

SPECIAL FEATURE 40 The future of wastewater management

ON THE COVER. Message from the Minister: Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga to newly-elected members. See page 14.

NOVEMBER 2016 LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE

l

3

EDITOR’S LETTER NZ LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE

High office often held in low regard Welcome back to all returning mayors, chairs and councillors. And hello to all newly-appointed elected members: I look forward to getting to know you as you settle in to your new roles and get to grips with balancing your rights and responsibilities over the next three years.

Now comes the hard business of managing the interface between yourselves as elected members and the people you represent, while also heeding signals from central government and listening to the practical insights from the officers who run your councils. I’ve yet to meet an effective councillor who claims it’s easy.

To help everyone know who’s who, we’ll be publishing a comprehensive list of all elected members on our website: www.localgovernmentmag.co.nz Voter turnout for both parliamentary and local body elections has been declining since the late 1980s. LGNZ ran a 10-month campaign to encourage more people to vote, aiming to get over 50 percent voter turnout. The campaign failed to reach its target for many reasons.

LGNZ put a positive spin on voter turnout numbers saying the “lift in voter turnout provides a good foundation for future engagement”. But the truth is the overall “lift”, if it could really be called that, was less than one percentage point across the whole country. Preliminary results put this year’s voter turnout at 41.8 percent excluding special votes, compared with 2013’s 41.3 percent.

Naturally, some areas drew in more voters than others and there may be lessons there. Ideas such as pushing harder for online voting are now being discussed. So too is the notion of ramping up interest by concentrating voting into a one-day event along the same lines as parliamentary elections.

We have to be honest, though. We need to acknowledge that when run alongside the perceptions surveys which show ongoing low regard for what councils do, local government has some serious issues to resolve.

Here’s hoping the new cohort of elected members will find new ways to take on these challenges.

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

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 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 Mark Bowater, Sarah Collins, Jeremy Elwood, Thomas Frey, Vaughan Keesing, Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga, Sarah Macky, Shelley McMurtrie, Padraig McNamara, Billy Michels, Helmut Modlik, Patricia Moore, Larissa Moyle, Amber Murphy, Mark Rogers, Jonathan Salter, Peter Silcock, Iain Smith, Tracy Talbot, Alan Titchall, Lawrence Yule 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

4 l www.localgovernmentmag.co.nz

GET THE FULL TREATMENT

Achieve best for project outcomes and delivery certainty on your Waste Water Treatment Plant through the combined strengths of a McConnell Dowell | HEB JV. Together, we offer a strong track record in safely delivering complex, large-scale infrastructure projects – most recently Watercare’s Mangere BNR Upgrade.

Our integrated, self-performing team can deliver all civil, structural and M&E works, within an environment of risk management, health and safety and environmental best-practice.

Talk to us about giving your project the McConnell Dowell | HEB treatment.

Contact Greg Wichman ph 021 284 8902 or Noel Band ph 027 474 6210

McConnell Dowell - HEB Joint Venture

IN BRIEF

AT THE

2016 SOLGM SUMMIT When SOLGM held its annual summit in Auckland just before this year’s local body elections it chose “inspiring leadership” as its theme.

The following is a brief summary of some of the papers, conversations and outcomes. For more ideas emerging from the summit turn to our feature articles Pledges, politics & practicality and Masters of their own fiscal destiny? Local government UK on pages 16 and 18 of this issue.

Partnership signals In her opening speech, SOLGM president Barbara McKerrow notes the need for ever more effective partnerships between the management and governance arms of local government.

LGNZ’s then deputy president Brendan Duffy says LGNZ and SOLGM are now working well together in presenting their views to central

government although LGNZ does not want to see the two organisations “separately banging on ministers’ doors” – but should do it together.

He says the two organisations had ‘challenges’ a few years ago and are now entering a new era where they need to very clearly and publicly hold hands and work together.

Barbara McKerrow

Understand what Wellington wants

Phil O’Reilly

Phil O’Reilly calls on local government to up its act in studying what central government wants and how it behaves.

Phil is director of public policy and business consultancy Iron Duke Partners and best known for his many years as chief executive of BusinessNZ. He says one of local government’s big challenges over the next five to 10 years will be understanding not just its regulatory role but its ability to influence decisions and actions.

In an interview with Local Government Magazine after the summit, he says turning up in Wellington with little idea

6 l www.localgovernmentmag.co.nz

of what government is trying to do and “just talking about yourself” is not going to work.

“If you are naive about what government is trying to do, and think having one meeting with an official or a minister is going to change much, then good luck with that.”

He says defining a local government issue as a problem does not help.

“Instead, get to understand the framework within which bureaucrats, officials and politicians are working, and how you can help them achieve their outcomes in ways that will also help you.”

More time for THAT BILL Minister for Local Government Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga announces he has asked the Local Government and Environment Select Committee to extend the report-back date for the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2).

The committee had been due to report back to the House by October 28. The date has now been shifted to the end of March next year.

The minister says the extra time will allow for “further policy consideration”, “more rigorous analysis of submissions” and “more constructive dialogue with the local government sector”.

The dangers of de-amalgamation Ricki Bruhn, executive committee member of LG Professionals Australia, says any council looking at de-amalgamating could learn some valuable lessons from experiences in Australia.

In an interview with Local Government Magazine he cautions officials to do some rigorous financial modelling first “to make sure the entities created can survive on their own without the Ricki Bruhn backing of government”.

Ricki is CE of the City of Palmerston in Australia’s Northern Territory. He says that ongoing funding shortfalls continue to dog both the Victoria Daly Regional Council and the West Daly Regional Council since they were formed through de-amalgamation in 2014.

They formerly operated as one council known as the Victoria Daly Shire Council which had been created as part of a large-scale amalgamation programme in the Northern Territory in 2008.

Since their 2014 separation, he says the two councils struggle to function.

“The split in services, staff, plant, machinery and infrastructure has made it difficult so now the Northern Territory government has to subsidise both of those councils so they can continue to exist.”

He estimates subsidies now run to around A$5 million each year.

Both councils cover large areas with small populations.

Victoria Daly Regional Council covers an area of approximately 153,000 square kilometres with a population of just 4500 including the five indigenous communities and surrounding outstations of Kalkarindji / Daguragu, Nauiyu / Daly River, Pine Creek, Timber Creek and Yarralin.

West Daly Regional Council covers 14,000 square kilometres and has a population of just over 3000 throughout the communities of Wadeye (Port Keats), Peppimenarti (Peppi) and Palumpa.

Ricki says it would have been obvious from the start that this particular de-amalgamation would create a need for ongoing additional government funding and suggests it was motivated by a need for government to win the bush vote.

In contrast, he says several other de-amalgamations in Queensland with larger communities have worked well.

New guides for long term plans SOLGM releases a new guide Your Side of the deal 2018: Performance Management and the LTP at the summit. The guide covers direction setting; levels of service, performance measures and targets; and communicating performance and supporting culture.

Other guides in the series include: Jigsaw 2018: Piecing the LTP Together – a quick reference to the entire range of processes and content requirements that make up a successful LTP. Dollars and Sense 2018: Financial and Infrastructure Considerations for the LTP – covers financial and infrastructure strategies, financial prudence and the financial information that goes into the long-term plan. This was published in October this year.

Telling Our Stories 2018: Guide on Consultation Documents – provides tips and tricks for writing an effective LTP consultation document.

More details on the SOLGM website.

New Zealand gets thumbs up for how it handles role separation A senior overseas local government officer says Canada has much to learn from how New Zealand handles the separate roles of elected members and chief executives – known as chief administrative officers (CAOs) in Canada.

Rob Buchan is CAO for the District of North Saanich, British Columbia. He was in New Zealand as part of a SOLGM New Zealand Manager’s Exchange programme with Canada’s Local Government Management Association (LGMA).

In his subsequent report – Examining approaches to defining and maintaining the roles of mayor, council and the CAO in New Zealand: Lessons for British Columbia – he says differences between the two countries’ legislation on role separation practice have a profound impact.

“While there are similar tensions of role cross-over (elected members wanting to be involved in administration and operations), these tensions do not generally become a problem (in New Zealand) because the legislation does not allow for early termination of a CAO contract without cause.”

He adds that LGNZ and SOLGM cooperate to address any such role or behaviour issues in the few cases that do emerge.

Rob says the key aspects of New Zealand’s legislation include: • The CAO is a mandatory position and the responsibilities are detailed in legislation; • The CAO is appointed for a five-year term with an option to extend on mutual agreement for an additional two years.

During the term of appointment the CAO cannot be terminated without cause. After the termination of the appointment the CAO can reapply for the position in an open competition.

• Codes of conduct for elected officials are required.

• The CAO is the employer for all local government staff.

• The CAO appoints and terminates all officers.

He says the New Zealand model – legislative, political and professional association policy and practice – should be considered in British Columbia.

NOVEMBER 2016 LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE

l

7

IN BRIEF

New code of ethics SOLGM launches a new code of ethics, updated from the earlier 2012 version.

Download a copy from the SOLGM website. bit.ly/SOLGM_CodeOfEthics

NOTE FOR YOUR DIARY The 2017 SOLGM Annual Summit will be held in Rotorua from September 27 – 29.

Dispute hits healthy rivers collaboration Waikato drystock farmers are up in arms about a Waikato Regional Council Healthy Rivers Plan for Change. A group of beef and dairy farmers have formed Farmers for Positive Change to protest against newly-ratified mechanisms in the plan which they say will add substantial costs to their operations and is ‘grand-parenting’ by another name.

Grand-parenting allocates future nutrient limits based on current or past nutrient discharge levels.

The Healthy Rivers’ Collaborative Stakeholders Group (CSG) denies the new practices – which set up a nitrogen (N) reference point – are grand-parenting. Total Ag director and farm consultant Rob Macnab is on record saying the plan could add an estimated $104,000 in fencing for a 525 hectare hill country farm, plus $98,000 for water reticulation measures. Use of the N reference point could swipe another $24,000 from the farm’s bottom line.

The Healthy Rivers Plan for Change uses wide consultation with stakeholders in its drive to make the Waikato and Waipa rivers safe for swimming and food gathering.

Councils make progress on glass recycling The Packaging Forum is about to front up to newly-elected mayors and councillors to explain the economic and environmental benefits of changing the way councils collect glass for recycling.

Over a third of councils already offer separate glass recycling collections. Whakatane District Council and Nelson District Council recently started up a glass-separate kerbside collection system and a new glass recycling service respectively.

Rotorua Lakes is also introducing a glass-only kerbside collection in addition to its new public place recycling facilities. Such facilities are in indoor or outdoor places that at any time are open to, or being used by, the public, whether free of payment or for a charge.

Councils and community groups can apply for funding for recycling initiatives. Download the application on www.recycling.kiwi.nz/.

Read all about it Te Awamutu opens its new $4.4 million solar-powered library.

Waipa District Council managed construction of the 1400 square metre facility built by Fletcher Construction to designs by Opus.

NZCCC: Bylaws on cemetery decorations sensible Palmerston North City Council’s proposal to fast-track a review of its cemeteries and crematoria bylaw has highlighted the challenges councils face in balancing management of public spaces with individuals’ freedom to express their grief.

Councils own around 300 cemeteries and 16 crematoria in New Zealand. Michelle Rivers, chair of the New Zealand Cemeteries and Crematoria Collective (NZCCC), says everybody grieves in their own personal way.

“For councils, this can mean providing a range of options and clarity around what is permitted in different cemeteries or burial areas, and a bylaw can be a useful way of doing this.”

Many councils, including Auckland Council and Taupo District Council, have bylaws in place to provide clarity around how different areas of their cemeteries can be decorated, and when broken items can be removed. Others, such as Christchurch City Council, have produced cemetery handbooks with sets of guidelines.

Represents New Zealand’s Civil and General Contracting Industry

Civil Contractors New Zealand offers opportunities to work with Local Government on:

• Procurement strategies and practices that support a healthy contracting industry; • How to monitor contractors’ health, safety and wellbeing processes; • Forward work programmes that provide continuity of work to retain and develop contractor capability; • Environmental and quality issues.

www.civilcontractors.co.nz

8 l www.localgovernmentmag.co.nz

Civil contractors get qualifications update A recent Civil Trades roadshow has outlined for councils latest details on Civil Trades and the associated suite of qualifications for civil contractors. The new qualifications cover a wide range of work including pipe installations and utilities maintenance. They will have significant benefits for local councils that have minimum training requirements for contractors working on their water infrastructure assets.

Facilitated by Connexis, the Infrastructure Industry Training Organisation, the roadshow was aimed at individuals who are involved with local government tenders and contracts, as well as those responsible for recruiting and managing utilities maintenance contractors.

In addition to showcasing Civil Trades, the roadshow also aimed to clarify the areas of work covered by each qualification. In the past, there has been some confusion around the differences between pipelaying, water reticulation and drainlaying qualifications.

As a result, some local councils have faced significant challenges in ensuring that their contractors are appropriately skilled and qualified for the type of work they are engaged in.

The introduction of Civil Trades means there is now one nationally recognised benchmark of competence for tradespeople operating in the civil infrastructure industry.

To become Civil Trades certified, candidates must complete a Level 4 Civil Trades qualification along with 8000 hours of certified practical experience, and provide two letters of character and competence attestations.

Qualifications at a glance

Bribery charges land pair in court Will the current Auckland High Court corruption case cast a shadow over the so-far solid reputation of New Zealand’s public sector in Transparency International’s annual Corruptions Index?

Former Rodney District Council and Auckland Transport senior manager Murray Noone and Stephen Borlase of roading contractor Projenz and are on trial facing charges of corrupting a public official through bribery.

They have pleaded not guilty to all charges.

NEW NZ Certificate in Pipe Installations – Level 4

NEW NZ Certificate in Utilities Maintenance – Level 4

National Certificate in Drainlaying – Level 4

• Can lead to Civil Trades certification

• Can lead to Civil Trades certification

• Does not lead to Civil Trades certification

• Strands in Trenched and Trenchless

• Strands in Water, Wastewater and Stormwater

• Covers installation of domestic drainage systems

• Covers maintenance of utility assets and failure response

• Work undertaken inside boundary of private property

• Crown / local authority infrastructure

• Does not cover people working on drains for Crown or local council

• Covers installation of utility assets • Crown / local authority infrastructure • Pipe specs: 1002400mm PVC, PE, CLS, concrete or steel pipe, at a depth of 600-6000mm • Available through Connexis ITO

• Pipe specs: 1002400mm PVC, PE, CLS, concrete or steel pipe, at a depth of 600-6000mm • Available through Connexis ITO

• Pipe specs: 100mm PVC pipe, at a max depth of 600mm • Available through Skills Org ITO

For more information call Connexis on 0800 486 626 or go to www.connexis.org.nz/qualifications/civil-qualifications/utilities

More light-bulb moments Here’s yet one more signal that thinking about street lighting is maturing.

IPWEA has just released early details of a street lighting and smart controls conference to be held in Brisbane from March 15 to 16 next year.

Once upon a time, talk used to focus on the nuts and bolts of the street lights themselves. Now, emphasis continues to shift to the benefits of linking the lights through smart controls technologies.

The conference is being held under the umbrella of IPWEA’s Street Lighting and Smart Controls (SLSC) Programme. This is a two-year, government-supported initiative designed to accelerate the deployment of LED street lights and smart controls in Australia and New Zealand.

The conference programme hasn’t been released yet.

Opening opportunities with connected thinking.

We connect the brightest minds to bring the best outcomes, for you and the lives you touch everyday.

Engineering. Management. Development. mottmac.com

NOVEMBER 2016 LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE

l

9

IN BRIEF DATES FOR YOUR DIARY NOVEMBER 1 Asset Management for Parks and Community Facilities.

Commodore Airport Hotel, Christchurch bit.ly/IPWEA_AssetMgmtParks 1 Road to 2018 LTP Seminars.

Millennium Hotel, Queenstown bit.ly/SOLGM_LTP_seminars (Also in Christchurch, 3 November; Palmerston North, 16 November; Auckland, 17 November) 1 Internet of Things.

Rendezvous Hotel, Auckland bit.ly/CONFERENZ_IOT 1 – Dec 13 Elected Members Induction.

LGNZ, Nationwide www.lgnz.co.nz 2–4 LAPA 2016 Annual Conference.

Trinity Wharf Hotel, Tauranga bit.ly/LAPA_2016_Conference 3–5 The LG Executive Leaders Programme.

TBA, Wellington bit.ly/SOLGM_LG-ExecLeaders (Followed by three one-day residential workshops on 8 March, 5 July, and 4 October 2017; two one-on-one coaching sessions; and a final review to conclude 12-month programme.)

7–8 NAMS Advanced Asset Management Forum 2016.

InterContinental Hotel Wellington www.nams.org.nz 9 – 11 NZRA National Conference.

Millennium Hotel, Queenstown bit.ly/NZRA_National_Conference 14 – 15 Urban Development Capacity Conference.

The Crowne Plaza, Auckland bit.ly/CONFERENZ_UrbanDevelopment 21 – 23 2016 Annual ALGIM Conference.

SKYCITY Convention Centre, Auckland bit.ly/ALGIM_Conference 28 – 2 Dec

10 l www.localgovernmentmag.co.nz

NZHS HWRS IPENZ Rivers Group 2016 Conference.

Millennium Hotel, Queenstown www.nzhs2016.co.nz 30 – 1 Dec NZ Transport Agency and NZIHT 17th Annual Conference.

Dunedin Centre, Dunedin bit.ly/NZTA_NZIHT_Conference

DECEMBER 2 2016 Elections Debrief.

Amora Hotel, Wellington bit.ly/SOLGM_ElectionsDebrief_2016 6 Introduction to Financial Governance. LGNZ LGNZ, Lambton Quay, Wellington www.lgnz.co.nz 15 Introduction to Financial Governance. LGNZ Selwyn District Council, Rolleston www.lgnz.co.nz

2017 FEBRUARY 1 –2 Project Management.

Venue TBA, Wellington bit.ly/SOLGM_ProjectManagement 16 – 17 Risk Management Forum 2017.

Macs Function Centre, Wellington bit.ly/SOLGM_RiskManagement 21 –22 Freshwater Management & Infrastructure.

Te Papa, Wellington bit.ly/CONFERENZ_FreshwaterMgmt

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

Brisbane Convention and Entertainment Centre bit.ly/IPWEA_StreetLightingConference

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

Please email details to ruth@localgovernmentmag.co.nz

ON THE MOVE Congratulations to all incoming and returning elected members. Go to our website for a new list of who’s who. www.localgovernmentmag.co.nz

experience includes strategy, planning, corporate finance and governance.

Stratford District Council CE Matt O’Mara says he will move on at the end of the year citing family circumstances.

New Plymouth District Council confirms the appointment of the five directors who will comprise New Plymouth PIF Guardians Ltd, which will begin operating in March next year. The new organisation will oversee the management of New Plymouth District’s Perpetual Investment Fund (PIF). The directors are: Mark Butcher (chair), Kirsty Campbell, David Rae, Tracey Jones and Jamie Tuuta.

Michelle Templer takes over as chief executive for Rotorua Lakes Council’s new council controlled organisation Rotorua Economic Development, which operates as Destination Rotorua. Michelle was coalition and sector manager for New Zealand Trade and Enterprise. She replaces Mark Rawson who held the interim chief executive position for two years until July this year.

Michelle Templer

Susan Huria and Brian Steele join the board of infrastructure Industry Training Organisation Connexis. They replace outgoing board members Alister Harlow and Don Tilbrook.

Susan Huria has a strong background in governance roles, and governance learning and development. Brian Steele’s professional

Mark Butcher

Doncaster Council chief executive Jo Miller is voted in as the next president of the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (SOLACE) in the UK. The organisation enjoys close ties with its New Zealand equivalent association SOLGM. Jo takes over from Birmingham City Council CE Mark Rogers who was recently a guest speaker at SOLGM’s Annual Summit in Auckland and whose ideas are featured in articles starting on page 18 of this issue.

Susan Huria

Brian Steele

Kirsty Campbell

David Rae

Tracey Jones

Jamie Tuuta

Thermo-System

®

Active Solar Sludge Dryer 80% dry solids can be achieved!

Parkson’s THERMO-SYSTEM® uses the sun as its main power source, where 95% of the energy required for drying is provided by solar energy. The result is significantly reduced operating costs compared to competing technologies like conventional gas or oil.

THERMO-SYSTEM® technology has been used in water and wastewater treatment plants ranging in size from 0.2 MGD to the world’s largest solar drying installation of 80 MGD. •

Environmentally-friendly, green technology

•

Dries liquid & dewatered sludge

•

Dewaters and dries sludge

•

Class A end product maximizes sludge disposal options

•

Proven: over 250 installations worldwide

09 274 4223

service@filtec.co.nz

filtec.co.nz

NOVEMBER 2016 LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE

l

11

IN BRIEF

COL LAB OR ATI

ON

DEMOCRACY

THAT BILL& What’s so ha

rd about colla

boration?

Counci ls argue govern ment has they’re alre ady wo bee centred rking col on provis n pushing for more sha laboratively. ions in (No 2).

Yet cen red act Ruth Le the Local Gov tral ivities. ernment Pla wo nders wh Act 200 Skirmishes hav y it’s all 2 e so hard Amendment Bill to sort out.

Letter to the editor

I

f there was one rally to galv anise actio ing cry guar anteed LGNZ n at this they shou annual year’s it was conferen ld be talk of ce in Dun July whether the ones the 2002 there is to dete Amendm Local Governm edin, assets rmine a diffe are run, ent ent Act specifica heard Prim managed rent way thei lly, it was Bill (No 2).

Big tick e Min r repo or own in the More talk of et item rted state ister John Key ed.”

Bill givin roading s such ’s rece ment that g the Loc the provision Commiss isn’t “ab assets as wat s deba lie at er and al Gov his gove ntlyion the solutely te. the hear ernment rnment without ability buttoned t of the issue. He said to set the agre down” Lawrenc up CCO he “wo ement of councils. on the over the e argues s the n’t die commun Bill, and that if in a ditc critical ities or forward” you take “if LGNZ mas h” s of wat from coun away presiden he’s open there’s a bett er and gone so er way t Lawrenc SOLGM to discussi roading far as to major part cils you are e CE on.

Yule Kar call taki single Governm en Tho has of wha it “one threats mas tells t they do. ng away a ent of the bigg “If to dem has face as the Prim Magazine she Local est wou you are a ocracy” d. inte small ld the sect rprets this party has e Minister star “Local council or then be left with ting to authoriti got othe you on no criti they say signal his electors es are r cal mor its mass and should agenda. e importa elected and rate somehow we actu “And if by loca nt item payers,” Governm further . And ally mer l ama this does s they’re he told ent Mag ge abo lgamatio that is where n’t go any not goin Local azine, you get ut it.” n by stea g to get “and we So it mus into lth.” too upse think Lawrenc t have t of man been mus e Yule says 16 l www y peop conversa ic to the le in the .loca lgov tions goin carefully “the ears ernm entm sector hopeful re are g on”. ag.c o.nz to have the gove He add its stan s he’s ce on that rnment might “amend particula r provision and

rnment Act 2002 Interesting article on the Local Gove (Local Government tion. bora Amendment Bill (No 2) and colla BILL. What’s THAT and Magazine, October 2016, Democracy _Bill_Collaboration) so hard about collaboration? bit.ly/LGA There is a fascinating contrast It’s worth digging a bit more deeply. experience post-austerity, and some quite good between English experience pre-and ions of councils. out of Australian regional organisat tance to give up the span of ed member egos and management reluc The collaboration issue is not just elect oluted decision-making processes er). It’s also the extraordinarily conv control (although these things do matt approve its involvement and to do so ice, each individual council needs to involved. With the typical shared serv latory oversight. which are quite constrained by regu through decision-making processes ugh molasses with thigh boots on!

It looks at times a bit like wading thro almost any innovation in the way from the pre-austerity opposition to What’s happened in England is a shift it will help reduce costs without terity approach that anything goes if services are delivered to a post-aus been associated with what’s referred than absolutely necessary. That has more ery deliv ice serv ising prom com h quite changes the way in which was evolving before austerity hit) whic to as strategic commissioning (which . and councils work with their communities tives. There is immense complexity m about the English devolution initia usias Beware also of too much enth rding finance. well as quite different discretions rega huge politics underlying all of that as kind of discretions which New Zealand deals is that councils might get the Part of the attraction of devolution g and borrowing. councils currently have in terms of ratin nt to which devolution of t in the New Zealand context is the exte Another thing to be very careful abou the reasons why English local an acceptable level of funding. One of functions would be accompanied by it has undertaken the delivery of a it does at the moment is traditionally government has the problems which rnment. h were previously fully funded by gove number of major social services whic back on funding without reducing cut usly serio led governments have Over the past few years, conservativeaware of.

New Zealand councils need to be very the service obligations. It’s a risk that tly-elected executive mayors as tion in the UK is the insistence on direc Another factor in the devolution situa ted. That’s caused all sorts of angst s to which devolution is actually gran the leaders of the combined authoritie imposition of the mayoral model. g through because of resistance to the with a number of potential deals fallin Regards inlay Douglas Peter McKinlay, executive director, McK

12 l www.localgovernmentmag.co.nz

we’re cert ainly wor they can” king hard . to see whe At a med ther app eared befo said mor ia briefing in mid Sept re the e bullishly and Env Local ember “within that he ironmen Governm he argu the next expected t Select e their few wee the gove to see Committ ent collabora case. ks” whe rnment ee to ting? And When ther will is a ligh LGNZ backs , even tning rod stick to its gun or not to the dow put its if will be s. “This committ own subm issue for Bill, won n on these prov government followed ee on Sept our sect than 15 ission ’t the pointed up inte or local gove isions in the ember mayors, inch tow and out that nsively.”

1, mor of regi ards the chairs rnment 2017 is e or central He also ona and coun creation sector perhaps an elec governm from arou l, city and cillors of mor tion their equi ent. e CCO year distr Karen Tho over nd the ict coun for Wel valents, s, mas note country cils wid time? When lington campaig s there’s SOLGM voluntarily in supp travelled e stocktak n of opp been ort. did a sect to it osition almost an activ used the e at the end against orall coun e WH the Bill of last cils term “sha AT? quite a survey from year bit of opp around the coun red serv defined All this within ices”. these is play where the Hou osition from othe try, plus the Its as arra ing out “two or se. lexicon ngem r parties at a time LGNZ work toge more loca ents of loca says 60 increasi when ther to l authoriti l gove submissio ngly councils deliver or shar rnment es shifting ns on phy e “con have capa sica is sulting” the Bill, l services city to from written stakehol and 32 talk of administrativ e or supp undertake som ders to of them collaborativel Such y” with “wo ort activ e activities So how them, anyw rking “ma ity”. , it exactly naged ay. said, are coun through may be venture, cils alre a cont joint com ady som ract, join mitt e other organisa ee, trust, CCO t tional form or ”.

OCTOB ER

2016 LOCA L GOVE RNM

ENT MAGA ZINE

l

17

EVENTS AT THE SOLGM SUMMIT 2016 IN AUCKLAND

1

2

1. Harold Hillman (The Sigmoid Group).

2. Alex Johnston, (Auckland Council Youth Advisory Panel), Ward Kamo (Maori Television), Kim Hill (summit MC), Marguerite Delbet (Auckland Council), Mark Rogers (Society of Local Authority Chief Executives [SOLACE] & Birmingham City Council, UK) & Brendan Duffy (LGNZ & Horowhenua District Council).

3

3. Monica Barone (City of Sydney).

4

4. Kim Hill (summit MC) & Brendan Duffy (LGNZ & Horowhenua District Council).

5. Bruce Robertson (Morrison Low) & Sue Bidrose (Dunedin City Council).

6. Rabia Siddique (author & speaker).

7. Kavin Lavery (Wellington City Council) & Jonathan Salter (Simpson Grierson).

8. Jason Marris (Whangarei District Council), Jesse Burgess & Tim Harris (both from Selwyn District Council).

9. Eeva-Liisa Wright, Natalie Young, Irene James & Helen Paki (all from Hamilton City Council).

5

6

8

7

9

NOVEMBER 2016 LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE

l

13

GOVERNANCE

Message from

THE MINISTER 14 l www.localgovernmentmag.co.nz

Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga, Minister of Local Government, tells newly-elected members that a more coordinated framing of the local government / central government relationship is required. Councils need new ways to manage finances and improve efficiencies. And more needs to be done to meet current needs and prepare for future demands.

C

ongratulations to all of you as you take your places around the council tables of New Zealand’s local bodies.

There are some new faces and some familiar ones.

I thank you all for your commitment to serve your local communities. Some long-serving mayors and councillors have called time on their local government careers while others have won fresh mandates.

Your roles as local body politicians give you unique opportunities to improve the lives of New Zealanders.

Effective local government forms a crucial foundation for a strong society through a successful economy. I want to help you achieve that.

Local government affects every New Zealander and directly impacts our many visitors. We are all proud of our country and the opportunities it offers. We want to ensure that, across the country, our communities are great places to live, work and play.

To achieve this requires a coordinated approach across regions. It also requires a more coordinated framing of the local government / central government relationship.

We are all aware that local authorities are facing challenges. Infrastructure networks need replacing. New infrastructure is required to support housing and business development, particularly in high growth areas. But the costs of infrastructure and local services are rising faster than council revenues. Councils need new ways to manage finances and improve efficiencies.

There are several projects across government that seek to address these challenges. My proposed changes to the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No.2) are part of the government’s response. They provide support for councils to work together to deliver high-quality services and better value for ratepayers. They will enable the formation of more effective re-organisations across regions.

Many councils have begun creating shared service models for roading, flood protection and building consent processes as well as other administrative functions. But more needs to be done to meet current needs and prepare for future demands.

My reforms enable the Local Government Commission to take a more proactive role working with councils and communities. The Commission will be able to investigate options for improved efficiencies and present these options for consideration by councils and the public. The Commission will be required to undertake public consultation before any re-organisation can occur.

In particular, the reforms will protect local communities and local democracy and strengthen councils’ performance.

Decisions about important infrastructure such as water and

transport will still be under council control through Council Controlled Organisations. Local councils will continue to manage their local services and be accountable to local communities.

Hearings are now completed on the Local Government Amendment Bill and I am working with LGNZ on obtaining better outcomes for New Zealanders. I thank each of you who made submissions to the select committee and I expect it to report back to the House by March 31, 2017.

The relationship between central and local government is critical. It has to be cohesive in order to provide effective services to our communities.

Local government is a vital part of New Zealand’s economic and social fabric. Collectively local authorities manage more than $96 billion in fixed assets and contribute more than $8 billion to New Zealand’s GDP each year. You also provide opportunities for local businesses and industry to create jobs.

Now more than ever it is vital that there is an open, collaborative relationship between central and local government. I want to build such a relationship with local government and would greatly value your perspective on how we achieve this.

Local government’s ratepayers are central government’s taxpayers. They want local and central government to work collaboratively, with their needs prioritised.

The decisions we as leaders make today affect future generations. There are some significant long-term trends emerging that present both challenges and opportunities for local and central government. These include rapidlychanging demographics and escalating costs.

I remain committed to working with all parts of local government to improve the services delivered to our ratepayers, residents and visitors. Together we can reach our goal of making New Zealand a great place to live, work and play.

Apart from the Local Government Act itself, there are many other pieces of legislation and policy which impact local government and which would benefit from a more collaborative approach. These cover issues such as transport, housing, climate change, disaster management, freedom camping, rates rebates and many others.

I look forward to engaging with you all to consider how a framework could clarify the respective roles of local and central government and provide mechanisms for managing issues.

I wish you all the best for your time in office. I look forward to meeting you and working with you to build a better New Zealand. LG

NOVEMBER 2016 LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE

l

15

LOCAL BODY ELECTIONS

PLEDGES, POLITICS & PRACTICALITY Councillors’ powers

Can elected members make good on their election “promises” to reverse decisions of the previous council or sack the chief executive? Simpson Grierson’s Jonathan Salter and Padraig McNamara spelt out the possibilities at SOLGM’s recent annual summit.

I

n both local and central government elections, candidates’ election promises are an important way of communicating to the electorate what a candidate stands for, and the means by which candidates can differentiate themselves from one another.

But unlike in central government, successful candidates in local authority elections will generally be unable to promise political outcomes – such as capping rates rises or delivering a major infrastructure project. This is due to several factors including: • Candidates running as independents, once elected, are not subject to a unified party structure that will dictate how they vote on particular issues; • The statutory requirement for local authority decisions to be made by votes cast at a meeting. This is, of course, subject to delegations; • Even mayors have limited powers under the Local Government Act 2002 (LGA) and Local Government (Auckland Council) Act 2009 (LGACA); • Statutory and common law requirements to consult.

But doesn’t legislation now give the mayor the role of providing leadership to the territorial authority and people of the district?

Yes, but section 41A of the LGA gives the mayor very limited powers to perform that role – the key one being the power to lead the development of key plans and policies such as the long-term plan (LTP) and annual plan. So while the mayor can promise to promote an LTP which limits annual rates rises to three percent, for example, if the mayor does not “command the numbers” around the council table, he or she cannot ensure that an LTP delivering that outcome will be adopted.

Is it the same in Auckland?

Fundamentally yes, although the LGACA also gives the Auckland mayor the power to establish and maintain an appropriately-staffed mayoral office with a minimum budget (no less than 0.2 percent of budgeted opex for that year). This at least allows the mayor to promote his or her agenda more strongly.

Do election promises have any legal status?

Almost invariably not. For a start, it is difficult to see a court upholding a candidate as “speaking for the council” during an election campaign. Further, campaign promises tend to be in the area of “discretionary” council decision-making (for example, how much to spend, and on what) where the courts have recognised that local authorities must be able to change their mind as circumstances dictate.

That may be distinguished from promises made by or on behalf of councils when they are acting essentially in a private capacity – such as making a decision to purchase land.

Importantly, any major proposal, and certainly the LTP, will be subject to consultation, the outcome of which cannot legally be predetermined by elected members.

Surely a new council can reverse positions and policies adopted by the previous council?

It depends on the nature of the decision, and any relevant legislation. On matters of policy and discretion councils will generally be free to do so. This is illustrated by Arms v New Plymouth District Council (High Court, New Plymouth, 14/5/2008, CIV-2006-043-399, Cooper J) where the High Court dismissed judicial review proceedings challenging the council’s decision to reverse a policy of allowing freeholding of Waitara leasehold land which it had adopted 15 years earlier.

By contrast, in Templeton v Kapiti Coast District Council (High Court, Wellington, 28/6/2005, CIV-2004-4851686, Miller J) the High Court found a council unable to reverse the decision of one of its committees to sell a parcel of council land. It upheld the Templetons’ application for judicial review of the governing body’s decision to reverse the committee decision, due to the comprehensive nature of the delegation to the committee, and clause 30(6) of Schedule 7 of the LGA. This provision says in effect that nothing in clause 30 entitles a local authority to rescind a decision made under a delegation authorising a committee to make the decision.

Given the greater latitude courts tend to afford local authorities when making policy decisions affecting the wider public (as distinct from private individuals), it seems unlikely a court would have reached the same result had the decision not concerned a sale of land affecting only a single landowner.

What about legislative compliance?

This remains key. Any decision to reverse a decision of a previous council should be made in accordance with the requirements of Part 6 of the LGA that apply to all local authority decisions, and any specific statutory provisions that may apply (for example, provisions governing withdrawal or discontinuance of a statutory policy).

So what about an election promise to replace the chief executive?

The comments above about the status of election promises, and limits on a council’s ability to change its mind, apply equally to a “promise” to replace the chief executive.

In addition, a contract of employment is a contract. It cannot be unilaterally terminated, except in accordance with its terms.

So, as a matter of law, a “promise” to replace the chief executive is a very difficult one to keep. It is also one which inevitably raises legal issues for the elected member who has taken such a stand during an election campaign. These could include issues of predetermination, bias, breach of good employer obligations and breach of good faith.

It is definitely a promise best not made. LG • Jonathan Salter and Padraig McNamara are both partners at Simpson Grierson. jonathan.salter@simpsongrierson.com padraig.mcnamara@simpsongrierson.com

>>

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

From left: Jonathan Salter and Padraig McNamara.

NOVEMBER 2016 LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE

l

17

INTERNATIONAL

MASTERS OF THEIR OWN

FISCAL DESTINY? Local government UK Councils in the UK are getting a major shake-up and new models emerging for future funding, roles and relationships with central government. SOLACE president Mark Rogers answered questions at the SOLGM Summit in Auckland recently.

M

ark Rogers is president of the UK’s Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (SOLACE) and chief executive of the City of Birmingham. At the 2016 SOLGM Summit he joined a panel of speakers from sister organisations in Canada, Australia and New Zealand to outline his country’s local government challenges.

What has, and what will, local government in the UK do to address government funding cuts and other austerity measures?

Mark Rogers We’ve been dealing with austerity measures since 2008 / 2009 and we now see austerity as permanent.

It needs to be seen in terms of the mix of funding that local government receives in the UK. We have four sources of revenue: we get government grants; we raise local taxes, called council taxes, which are basically a property tax; we can raise income; and we get a percentage of business revenue that’s collected locally.

Since 2008 central government has effectively been phasing out its grants. Not every council gets the same percentage of its revenue via grants but at Birmingham City, where I work for example, more than half of our income stream had been through government grants. So phasing that out has been a big deal for us.

In general, local government has been addressing these pressures in four ways.

1 The big agenda that’s taking over from our obsession with austerity is our obsession with devolution. There’s a very strong dialogue with national government now about the powers and the funding that it is prepared to relinquish.

There’s a big drive towards devolution, particularly around

18 l www.localgovernmentmag.co.nz

what’s called fiscal devolution – the ability to raise taxes locally over and above the council tax in order to provide substitute funding.

So the first big response to austerity has come in the form of a challenging debate with government on the terms under which it is prepared to give up its control over our financial destiny.

2 Ever since the funding cuts started to kick in we’ve had to reshape local government. We’re moving away from a predominantly service-based model where we have continued for many decades until recently to deliver endless services to local residents. We’re now becoming more like commissioning organisations where we do less and less direct service delivery and more commissioning or co-commissioning with partners, getting third parties to provide services on our behalf.

We have much more focus on community engagement and activism. Some would see that simply as a means of substituting local government funding for free activity by communities – and there would be some truth in that. Hand in hand with becoming a more commissioning organisation, there are things that communities can do for themselves that they haven’t previously done.

3 We’re thinking much more about whole systems. In the UK local government is constantly in a tussle with the National Health Service which is run through London. Increasingly, we’re seeing that the only way to save money around people’s health and social care needs is to bring the two systems together to try to be much more efficient in the commissioning and delivery of services to residents.

4 Finally, SOLACE is really focused on what kind of leadership is needed to effect these sorts of changes. How do you lead

Three questionable jobs for local government 1. W hy should any of the councils I’ve worked for, including the one I’m at now, cut the grass on the pavement outside my house? I cut my lawns. Why shouldn’t I just take the lawnmower down the end of the drive and cut the grass? Why are we so reliant on social services?

2. What happened to going next door and asking the person there if they’re okay or would they like some help?

3. In the UK we’re literally rubbish at rubbish. Why do we rely on council to take away rubbish and sort it? Why can’t we sort it ourselves?

Source: City of Birmingham chief executive Mark Rogers, speaking at the SOLGM Summit.

Mark Rogers

in a world of austerity, for example, where you’ve got less control or even influence, and when you’re trying to work in complex systems – not in individual institutions?

Are we really clear about the purpose of local government going forwards? What’s local government for? What kinds of values underpin our public service approach? What do we bring to the table by way of public service ethics?

Increasingly for me, the most important point in all of this is in changing the narrative away from cuts – with phrases like the ‘jaws of doom’ and ‘the end of local government as we know it’ – to ‘actually, so what?’

I run a council that’s still got a £3 billion [about NZ$6 billion] budget. What are we doing with that money that still helps deliver our priorities and makes a difference for residents?

Or for that matter, what can you still do with £180 million if you're a small borough like the one I used to work in called Solihull.

It’s no good whinging about cuts, because residents don’t give two hoots about local government’s problems.

What lessons have been learnt to date and what advice would you give to other countries?

The most interesting piece of advice that local government offers – and politicians would say they’ve learnt – is that there was far too much poorly-targeted and poorly-used money in the system before austerity kicked in.

In the late ’80s, all of the ’90s and into the first part of the 2000s, successive governments had found it possible to put more and more into initiatives to help with their policy agendas. But these initiatives were short-term, grant-led, difficult to sustain and often ill-thought-out.

During the first half of austerity – from around 2009 through to around 2013 – whilst we complained bitterly,

and some of what we had to do was difficult, actually the impact on front-line services was negligible because a lot of money got taken out of such initiatives.

Then we spent a lot of time doing things you’ve talked about in New Zealand around shared services and consolidating back offices across organisations.

So the first lesson we learnt was you do need to spend your money really carefully. We had too much loose money rattling around in the system and it wasn’t delivering particularly effective changes to outcomes.

However, as we tip into long-term austerity, what our government has done very little of – and what local government has found very difficult to do because of its small scale – is an impact assessment of the reduction of funding.

The reduction in local government funding has run alongside national changes in welfare. Yet we have a very poor understanding of what difference that reduction in funding is really making on the most challenged communities.

There’s a lot of rhetoric about that – particularly a lot of political rhetoric. But we have a really poor understanding of the difference, either positive or negative, that the withdrawal of funding is making to public services. That’s unforgivable in a world where one of the principles we usually abide by is evidence of local policy and evaluation of impact.

So I’d say to you that, if you get hit with a long-term austerity programme, right at the outset some money should be spent on tracking its impact, particularly on the most vulnerable members of your community. That way you will better understand where to target subsequent cuts in services.

Finally, we spent a long time having the wrong narrative.

Bleating on about lower funding is absolutely pointless and it doesn’t have much impact on national government either.

It’s much better to tell the story about what you’re still trying to achieve. What is your organisation for? What are the priorities you’re working to? What are the outcomes you’re trying to change?

What’s going well in your country and what still needs improvement?

Local government has been amazingly resilient, has adapted and become more creative. I don’t think you need austerity to drive creativity. But the truth of the matter is that it has.

NOVEMBER 2016 LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE

l

19

INTERNATIONAL We now need to work out how to sustain that increased creativity once this phase is over.

We now have a whole bunch of councils thinking really imaginatively about what they want to do on a third to a half of the amount of money they had previously. That’s a real tribute to local government and something to be celebrated.

Local government’s role in economic development is also going really well. The global financial crisis set the UK back a long way. Local government has played a fantastic hand in helping economic development flourish during a really

difficult period of reduction of public finances. And whilst we’re still struggling post-Brexit with whether or not we will go back into technical recession, there’s a real success story about investment in infrastructure.

Devolution is also seeing a commitment by national government to empower local government a bit more so we can be financially self-sufficient and much more selfdetermining.

The big national challenge in the UK is housing. Ever since the ’50s we should have been building 250,000 houses every year. We’ve been building less than 120,000

GROWING PAINS Birmingham City Council CE Mark Rogers says that, painful though they have been, nationwide reforms in the UK are opening up opportunities for a more adult-to-adult relationship between local and central government.

And that has got to be good.

O

ver in the British west Midlands, Birmingham City is on a roller coaster ride of huge growth and challenging times.

Back in 2010, the city’s population was 1.1 million. Fast forward to 2030 and Birmingham will probably be home to closer to 1.3 million – even 1.35 million – people. Already Birmingham has the youngest population of any city in Europe and, by 2030, half the population will be under 30 years of age. Its inhabitants speak some 186 languages. And by 2030, Birmingham is tipped to be the first majority Muslim city in the UK. Despite such stellar growth, like other councils throughout the rest of the country, Birmingham City Council has been on the receiving end of an austerity programme driven both by the 2008 financial crash and a nationwide policy to shrink government.

Chief executive Mark Rogers says Birmingham City Council has had its standard grant from government culled by around 45 percent between 2010 and 2015. Government will gradually reduce that grant to zero by 2020.

“The upside – and there is an upside to this,” he says, “is the government’s got a plan to substitute that grant funding with business rates. We already get some money from business rates but the rate levied locally all goes back to [central] government first and then they give us 50 percent back. By 2020 the entirety of business rates will come back to council.”

For Mark, the silver lining in all of this is that it hands very strong incentives to local authorities to drive private sector growth in their own areas in their own ways.

20 l www.localgovernmentmag.co.nz

The levers are now being pulled differently, says Mark. And with that comes an opportunity for local government to challenge its relationship with London.

“We’ve got to end the parent / child relationship between central and local government. We are two sets of adults and local government needs its independence.

“Local authorities do not need their every waking moment, their every move, to be either policy-driven or in other ways regulated by central government.”

He says he has “some envy” for the independence of local government in New Zealand “because it’s clearly stronger than what we have”.

“Last year, there was a strong move amongst English councils to persuade the government to set up a commission that would effectively provide a constitution for local government and strengthen its independence in a way that you’ve already got here,” he says.

Despite strong backing from many councils, that initiative foundered, due in part to the change in government.

“Now,” says Mark, “I think we’re moving on. The big drive to devolution is an alternative to a constitution.”

In Birmingham’s case, devolution means it has been able to enter a formal partnership with six of its neighbouring councils to create a combined authority. And this means government now recognises them collectively as a negotiating body to set up and control large-scale initiatives of their own.

“You couldn’t do it any other way,” says Mark. “That negotiating

most years. So there’s a huge housing shortage across the UK. But it’s also an opportunity for local government to get back into housing building again. My council, slightly uncharacteristically at the moment, has built a whole lot of social housing – both housing for rent and housing to buy.

The second challenge – and therefore opportunity – is community engagement. We’ve got a whole bunch of councillors whose job isn’t to run a council – whose job is to represent the communities that elected them. So they need to represent, empower and enable those communities in a way that is as independently-minded as can be.

Austerity has helped with that as well because it’s made people realise that not everything is going to get paid for by council and maybe some things never should be.

The final challenge or opportunity is the potential of digital. Local government has cracked the importance of the customer and things like channel shift but it hasn’t tapped into the significance of digital and how it can dramatically reduce costs in local services. Digital is not the panacea but local government hasn’t gone far enough with it.

We haven’t used digital to revolutionise the way we operate or how we organise ourselves. LG

Devolution means Birmingham City Council has been able to enter a formal partnership with six of its neighbouring councils.

body gets a mayor. We’ll get ours next year but we’ve already been able to negotiate our first deal which is bringing HS2 – the high-speed rail system – to the Midlands in a way that means we don’t just bring the railway line and two stations but we also put in the infrastructure for private sector growth and more housing.”

Government is giving the combined authority £40 million a year for 30 years, off the back of which it can borrow £1 billion.

“We then add that to our local infrastructure resources so we’ve

now got what used to be a programme of just under £6.5 billion going up to £7.5 to £8 billion for the next 10 years.

“We get the money for 30 years but the borrowing we can do off that we will spend in the first 10 years and that will bring HS2 much more quickly to the Midlands.”

In other words, by kicking the parent / child relationship into touch, local authorities get to make the investment decisions for infrastructure in their own region. LG

NOVEMBER 2016 LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE

l

21

TECHNOLOGY

CH- CH - CH -

CHANGES

What’s the future of work and technology for councils? Who better to ask than futurist Thomas Frey, executive director of the DaVinci Institute and former innovation editor of The Futurist magazine.

Is society ready for the pace of change that will be happening with our digital future?

What is the number one change that we are going to face as a human race?

Not at all. We are creating a layer of digital infrastructure over everything physical in the world. X-Prize founder, Peter Diamandis, often frames the coming change around the “six Ds of exponentials”: digitalisation, deception, disruption, demonetisation, dematerialisation and democratisation.

Digitisation is very deceptive because it channels products and industries into an exponential growth curve that most are not prepared for. While people are hard-wired to think linearly, exponential growth has a constantly-increasing trajectory.

Solar power, which today only contributes two percent to global power production, has been consistently doubling every two years. If this continues, in just 12 short years, solar will move from two percent – four percent – eight percent – 16 percent – 32 percent – 64 percent and become the dominant force of power around the world.

Digital products are disruptive because change happens far more frequently. Tesla cars, as an example, receive a monthly download, so part of their sales pitch is that after owning a car for a year you’ll be driving a better car than when you first bought it. Digital creates new markets and forces traditional industries to rethink their business models around doing more with less.

Since digital products are formed around bytes, pixels and free-flowing information, the cost of doing business plummets, resulting in both demonetisation and dematerialisation trends.

Smartphones, once a status symbol for the well-heeled, have quickly become affordable by the masses, and each phone has the ability to perform the tasks of 25 separate devices in the past. We gain far more performance with less material for less money.

Democratisation comes into play when technology becomes more accessible and everyone gets to participate.

The next waves of change will be happening on multiple fronts, each creating their own internet-sized opportunity.

By 2030 over two billion jobs will go away. That doesn’t mean we’ll have two billion people unemployed, but that we’ll need to create new jobs at a rate far faster than ever before in history.

We are wasting the talent of human ingenuity on low-level tasks that can better be performed by machines. Driving cars, cleaning offices and security guard positions are relatively lowskill positions that will be largely taken over by some form of automation.

Those entering the workforce in 2030 will have to plan to reboot their careers six times throughout their life. Our biggest challenge will be retraining or reskilling our workforce for the jobs of the future.

People facing the need to shift gears that often will want to do it in the least amount of time possible, making traditional colleges a very poor fit for this type of training.

At the DaVinci Institute we’ve been experimenting with what we call a Micro College where we reboot people’s career paths in less than three months. Our goal is to create a working laboratory for launching new Micro Colleges. These Micro Colleges will span the spectrum from fly drone academies, to crowdfunding schools, 3D printer designer schools, aquaponics farmers institutes and countless more.

22 l www.localgovernmentmag.co.nz

What will be the most surprising change, or the one we are least prepared for?

Driverless cars will change transportation more dramatically than the invention of the automobile itself. While this transition will happen over the next two to three decades the changes will be profound.

Imagine stepping out of your house 15 years from now and using your smartphone to summon a driverless vehicle. Within two to three minutes a driverless vehicle arrives and whisks you off to work, school, shopping or wherever you want to go.

A form of on-demand transportation is already happening with companies like Uber and Lyft. If we eliminate the driver, costs will plummet.

Thomas Frey will be a guest speaker at the 2016 Annual ALGIM Conference in Auckland, November 21 – 23. bit.ly/ALGIM_Conference

Once the technology is perfected, on-demand transportation companies will crop up in most metropolitan areas with large fleets of vehicles poised to meet consumer demand.

Here are a few of the changes that will begin to happen: • Far fewer people will own cars.

• Many businesses will disappear – gas stations, oil change places, tyre shops, car dealerships, car washes, auto parts stores and rental car companies.

• Parking lots will disappear freeing up valuable real estate for other uses.

• The auto insurance industry will begin to disappear.

• Cars will be designed without steering wheels, gas pedals, brakes or spare tyres.

• Traffic cops, courts, stoplights and judges will begin to fade into the sunset.

• Most houses will be designed without garages.

What technology that we are seeing now will become more crucial / commonplace in future?

When the internet was formed, the network itself became a massive platform upon which millions of new innovations could spring to life. As a networking platform, every new application can be hung like ornaments on a Christmas tree, to add additional capabilities.

In a connected digital environment, innovation is parsed into far smaller pieces, enabling even more people to contribute.

In 2007, the introduction of the iPhone paved the way for a massive app-building community that has made smartphones an essential part of everyday living.

Today we are witnessing the convergence of technologies that are forming eight new platforms, each with the potential to grow exponentially into an internet-sized opportunity.

Most people are aware of these technologies, having heard

the buzz in the news media, but few are actually viewing them as massive growth engines with the same explosive potential as the internet.

These eight technologies span: trillion-sensor network; the internet of things; 3D printing; contour crafting; virtual and augmented reality; flying drones; driverless technologies; and artificial intelligence.

So if these eight technologies are driving the next wave of innovation, what comes after them?

Rest assured there are a large number of equally transformative technologies already percolating their way to the top. Some may even grow faster and more explosively than the list above.

Keep an eye on things like blockchain technologies, synthetic biology, quantum computing, super materials (graphene, stanene), tube transportation (ET3 and hyperloop), bioengineering (CRISPR), DNA sequencing, chatbots, neuroengineering, quantum computing, atmospheric energy harvesting, near-earth satellite tech (project Loon, Aquila, Titan), robotics, neural user interfaces and mass energy storage.

The next generation of transformative technologies may be exponentially larger, possible 32 or 64 of them happening simultaneously.

What role do you see local government playing in the fast moving world? Will we still be relevant?

We are all flawed humans, and as such, we need each other.

Our economy is based on us trading goods and services to provide for the needs of others.

People create the economy. Without human needs we would have no economy, and by extension, no need for technology.

Governments provide an essential checks and balances system for running a civilised society. This includes checks and

NOVEMBER 2016 LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE

l

23

TECHNOLOGY balances for technological as well as human-based systems.

One concept I have proposed is something called “fractal governance”.

Since technology is exceeding governments’ ability to manage it, new global systems, or fractals, will emerge to offer a solution. Each fractal will be highly automated, and come with its own management structure.

I refer to them as fractals because each of them represents a tiny bit of order in an ocean of chaos. As fractals catch on we will begin to see new patterns of governance emerge.

Fractals represent the intersection of national and global governance.

I’ll begin by describing the privacy fractal which will only deal with privacy issues, but it will manage these issues in every member nation it manages to recruit.

Starting with a “Geneva Convention on Privacy”, the organisation will establish global guidelines to deal with legal definitions, establish limits, handle abuses, and develop monitoring tools to signal whenever there is a privacy breach that has occurred.

In much the same way ICANN is the global authority for naming and numbering systems related to the internet, the privacy fractal will establish itself as the global authority on privacy.

Fractal governance will serve as a check and balance to national governance, but only in a very limited scope.

A fractal is a narrow spectrum of global authority managed by an independent organisation that operates outside of the control of individual nations. Member nations will assign representatives to the fractal’s advisory board but the organisation will operate outside of the control of any one nation.

Some fractals will be mandated by large international assemblies such as a G20 Summit while others will originate organically, recruiting member nations on their own.

Fractals will be funded through nation-based membership dues.

Once a fractal reaches critical mass, somewhere in the range of 20 member states, there will be a tendency for it to serve as the default authority in all matters related to its scope of governance.

The full range of possible fractal organisations is only limited by our imagination, but the earliest ones will be those that address a specific problem for countries today.

Since countries don’t know how to deal with cryptocurrencies, we may see a “Cryptocurrency Fractal” mandated at the next G20 Summit. But that may be too broad of scope and a separate authority may be needed for Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin, and each of the cryptocurrencies gaining traction around the world.

With the concept of ownership being muddied by governments and police claiming authority to seize property, an “ownership fractal” may be needed to sort out all of the issues related to ownership around the world. Simply claiming rights based on the “spoils of war theory” needs to go away.

Fractal governance will cover a wide range of topics from concrete to esoteric. Here are a few to help stimulate your

24 l www.localgovernmentmag.co.nz

thinking: • Global accounting standards • Business ethics • Time zones • Nanotech measurement standards • Incarceration fractals • Ocean pollution • Asteroid mining • Marijuana policy • Language archive • Patent and intellectual property • GPS • Cross-border taxes • Telepresence networks • Identity standards • Wind rights.

Over time, turf battles between nations will be replaced by turf battles over the range and limits of fractal authority.

Going back to your original questions, humans are the only thing relevant in the world. If we lose control, nothing else matters.

Where do you see the future of work?

The internet is a very sophisticated communications tool, enabling us to align the needs of business with the talent of individuals in far more precise ways. Rather than hiring someone for a full time job, we will see the tendency to hire people for two months, two weeks, two days or even two hours.

The most valuable skills will be resilience, adaptability, determination and resourcefulness. People will need to have the ability to shift gears often.

We are entering into a world where driverless vehicles will eliminate millions of driving positions; robotic systems will work relentlessly day and night eliminating millions of manufacturing, welding, painting and assembly positions; and things that seemed impossible to automate in the past will have computers and machines replacing people’s jobs.

At the same time, the amount of time it takes to build ships and skyscrapers, create massive data storage centres for all our growing volumes of information, or produce global wireless networks for all our devices has dropped significantly. But along with each of these drops is a parallel increase in our capabilities and our expectations.

For these reasons, I’d like to reframe the discussion by proposing the following “Laws of exponential capabilities”: LAW #1: With automation, every exponential decrease in effort creates an equal and opposite exponential increase in capabilities.

LAW #2: As today’s significant accomplishments become more common, mega-accomplishments will take their place.

LAW #3: As we raise the bar for our achievements, we also reset the norm for our expectations.

Whether it’s building the Great Pyramids in Egypt, erecting the Great Wall of China or sending someone to the moon, crazy-big projects have a way of defining our humanity and raising the bar for future generations.

As our capabilities improve, we simply need to set our sights higher and aim for the stars… literally.

Naturally there are a few downsides to our expanded capabilities. Addictions can become exponentially more addictive. Dangerous people can become exponentially more dangerous. And global conflicts have the potential of becoming exponentially more disastrous.

If you think we’re going to run out of work anytime soon, think again. We’re about to enter a period of severe talent shortages. But since future jobs will bear little resemblance to our jobs today, only the super-adaptable need apply. LG

SAFETY

SAFETY CHECKING New obligations for councils under the Vulnerable Children’s Act.

L

ibrarians, staff at council pools, skate park guardians and road safety coordinators could be among council staff affected by new legislation. On July 1 last year, safety checking regulations for the children’s workforce came in to force.

Safety checking, under the Vulnerable Children’s Act 2014 (the Act), requires that all paid people who work with children for government-funded organisations are safety checked, and these checks are updated every three years.

Although not previously required, many local authorities are already voluntarily ensuring that children’s workers are safe to work with children.

Now, from September 1 this year, local authorities (and the organisations they fund) that provide children’s services are legally required by the Act to ensure all core children’s workers who are starting a new job are safety checked.

A ‘core worker’ is a children’s worker who, in the course of their work, will be alone with children or will at times have primary responsibility for, or authority over, children.

From September 1, 2017, this requirement will also apply to all non-core workers.

The Act introduced a workforce restriction, which prohibits employing people with convictions for specified offences in

core worker roles, unless they hold a core worker exemption.

The offences which trigger the workforce restriction involve specific serious convictions, such as child abuse, sexual offending and / or violence convictions, and are listed in Schedule 2 of the Act. For local authorities (and organisations they fund) this means from September 1 2016 the workforce restriction applies to anyone seeking a new role as a core children’s worker. From September 1 2017, the workforce restriction will also apply to all existing core children’s workers.

If an individual has one of the offences listed in Schedule 2, and they are currently employed as a core children’s worker they will have until September 1 2017 to obtain a core worker exemption. A core worker exemption is not role-specific; a core worker exemption holder, subject to conditions, can be employed in any core children’s worker role. LG

More details www.childrensactionplan.govt.nz Queries relating to safety checking: admin@childrensactionplan.govt.nz Queries about the workforce restriction or associated core worker exemption: Core_Worker_Exemption@msd.govt.nz or phone 0800 462 511

NOVEMBER 2016 LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE

l

25

INFRASTRUCTURE

Infrastructure contracts

THE DEBATE CONTINUES A workshop for NEC3 contracts project managers in Christchurch last month, and organised by NEC in the UK, rekindled an old industry debate and dilemma over contracts. By Alan Titchall.

T

he one-day NEC workshop was held on October 27, a few days before the IPWEA-owned RIM conference in Dunedin, and was organised in partnership with Constructing Excellence in New Zealand, which is the NZ licensed re-seller of NEC3 information and currently acts as the secretariat to the Australasian NEC3 User Group.

The NZS:3910 Conditions of Contract for Building and Civil Engineering Construction is still the most widely used contract here. Written specifically to reflect our civil construction industry, NZS:3910 was first published in 1984 following a radical rewrite of the previous standard NZS:623. Supporters of NZS:3910 say it has been developed (and regularly reviewed) collaboratively by industry peers (clients, consultants, contractors, insurers, lawyers) and has benefited from many revisions – generally at five-year intervals. Each revision has followed an extensive industrywide consultation period.

The latest revision of NZS:3910 accommodates the Construction Contracts Act 2002 (CCA), which is not covered by overseas standard forms of contract. For instance, a main component of the CCA provides processes for payment and dispute resolution (it is illegal to contract out of the Act).

However, over the past decade, with an influx of engineers from overseas (particularly the UK) there has been a push to use alternative forms of contracts that are held up to be ‘relational’ contracts.

NEC says it is gaining ground in the Australasian region with the use of its contracts, especially among local councils. Recently, the Horowhenua District Council appointed local contractor Caldow Builders under an NEC3 Engineering and Construction Contract (ECC) option D (target contract with bill of quantities) to build a new $4.3 million community centre in Foxton.

Project manager Marc Palmer says: “NEC’s strong cooperative principles and its tried and tested target cost provisions were central to the council’s decision to select

26 l www.localgovernmentmag.co.nz

ECC. The contract also aligns with the community-driven project’s aims to maximise collaboration between the key groups supporting it as well as harness the skills and capacity of the community.”

Other major projects that have adopted NEC3 include Watercare’s Hunua 4 project in Auckland; the Christchurch Art Gallery re-levelling project; the Waitaki hydropower station refurbishment; and the Mill Creek wind farm.

BY KIWIS FOR KIWIS Despite this, many in the contracting industry believe that NEC contracts will never improve upon the Kiwi-designed NZS:3910.

Says Malcolm Abernethy, executive officer with CCNZ: “NZS:3910 was written by Kiwis for Kiwis and developed collaboratively by all sectors within the construction industry.

“On the other hand, NEC was developed in the UK as a result of their dysfunctional contracting industry and litigious approach to contracts back in the ’90s or very early 2000s.”

Malcolm says the local industry is relatively small,

which requires contractors to have a “mature” approach to contract relationships.

“As a result the industry is generally collaborative and has to be if the contractors and clients want to work together in the future.”

He also notes that Horowhenua District Council a couple of years ago used NEC on a water maintenance contract and then retendered it as a NZS:3910.

Gallo Saidy, group manager infrastructure services for the council, says the three waters NEC maintenance contract is actually still in place and doesn’t expire until June 2017.

“In the past the intention was to go to tender using a simpler contract such as the NZS:3910, but the existing contract got extended for another two years. I can say (though) we will not be continuing with NEC.” Joe Edwards, an operations manager at McConnell Dowell Constructors, says NEC3 needs to be adapted to comply with New Zealand law using special conditions, while this is not the case for NZS:3910.

“NEC3 does limit overall risk exposure on contracts by allowing a cap on liability and excluding consequential loss, and this is being adopted by some clients using NZS:3910.

I believe there are now a number of litigations that are coming through in the UK over NEC3s.”

Joe also notes that the NZTA, the country’s largest

procurer, works exclusively with NZS:3910. “NZTA has also developed, and continues to expand, the collaborative contracting approach throughout its work. Watercare Services used to use NEC3 and has now reverted back to NZS:3910.”

To work effectively, NEC3 imposes a number of key obligations on the client’s PM, says Joe, which is an area often not well managed and can be overlooked.

“A key issue with a number of contracts put to the market is the special conditions imposed and the implications of these. The reasons for including special conditions vary, but generally they move risk from what was the intent in the General Conditions of Contract. This in itself changes attitudes.

“A contract I saw recently had a milestone payment clause proposed where the contractor would be significantly cash negative to a high percentage of the overall contract value, and for the majority of the contract. This is not collaborative and the general conditions of contract allow these changes.

“Hence, a key aspect of collaborative contracting starts with the willingness to work together, have special conditions that match this, and a knowledge that the way the current contract goes will impact on the winning of future contracts.”

Which form of agreement will best deliver contract objectives?

NOVEMBER 2016 LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE

l

27

INFRASTRUCTURE COLLABORATIVE? Dave Jewell from Bond Contraction Management says that while it is often stated that NEC is a ‘cooperative’ or ‘collaborative’ contract, this is wrong.

“It is not correct to describe prescriptive notification requirements and strict communication protocols as ‘collaborative’.

“While these are good disciplines in any contract, NEC3 is no more ‘collaborative’ than NZS:3910. Collaboration is an attitude that the parties bring to their contractual relationship – it cannot be prescribed in a contract form that assigns risk to each party, and leaves each to the commercial consequences of those risks.”

A feature of our market is that it is small, and poor relationships and / or poor performance on contracts become common knowledge and can be a significant factor in securing future work, says Dave.

“So the parties work hard to maintain effective relationships, and in that context, NZS:3910 serves everyone very well.”

Dave concedes that NEC3 has one clear advantage over NZS:3910 – in that it is a suite of contracts for different situations and parties.

“While NZS:3910 has recently added a D&C version (3916), NEC3 has standard forms for just about every

IS YOUR NETWORK UP TO STANDARD? 28 l www.localgovernmentmag.co.nz

construction contracting situation.”

David Langford at New Plymouth District Council believes the industry will see more NEC contracts being used in the future.

“New Plymouth District Council’s new Infrastructure Professional Services Contract is the first time we have used NEC. While our contract is still in its early stages, we are already seeing positive results, in particular regarding a strong swing towards a more collaborative working environment with our consultant.”

David says he has extensive personal experience of using the NEC2 and NEC3 contract documents in the UK, plus experience with other contract forms such as ICE sixth and seventh editions in the UK, and NZS:3910 here in New Zealand.

“Over the years I have developed a strong preference for the NEC suite of documents due to their balanced nature, encouragement of collaborative working, flexibility and stimulus of good project management practice.”

However, he also believes there will always be a place for NZS:3910.

“As a client, I believe procurement is all about choice, which includes having a choice about which form of contract is going to best deliver your project objectives.” LG

0800 93 7473

hynds.co.nz

Tekapo, New Zealand Tourism Impact Community Response Automated Public Toilets

PR O B L E M D E F IN IT I O N

OP TI ONS CONS I DERE D

Tourism in New Zealand is booming and presents both opportunities and challenges for communities in heavily trafficked seasonal destinations. Local government is under pressure to fund critical infrastructure projects that link regional growth to visitor numbers.

Portable Toilets • Styling not aligned for a high profile scenic tourism destination • Not disability accessible Traditional Concrete Block

Garth Nixon from MacKenzie District Council recognised the importance of decisive action to balance resident community needs with the benefits of increasing visitor numbers to the Lake Tekapo area.

• Costs ignore architectural design which when factored can be more costly than other types • Operational costs are higher when cleaning and security consumables costs are considered

“Our challenge was how to reduce the impact of increasing tourism pressure in particular, freedom campers and coach tourism, on our local environment. Community feedback pointed to a need for improved public toilets to help keep our image as a pristine scenic destination.”

Prefabricated Automated Toilet • Automated functionality halves operational costs when compared to traditional manual buildings • “Plug and play” design reduces installation costs • Web-based functionality to remotely change operation times in peak season

SOLUT IO N – E x e lo o C o i n O p e r at ed A ut om a t e d P ubl i c Toi l et (A P T) Exeloo Jupiter Automated Public Toilet Heavy gauge steel framed relocatable design Multiple cubicle, user-pays access Aesthetically sympathetic to pristine environment Remote monitoring capability to access operational statistics for improved asset management

K EY F IN D IN G S AN D O U T C O M E S

1

Local Council • Balances a critical community issue with visitor needs • Reduced life cycle costs associated with toilet design, operational cleaning, consumable use and security

3

• Uses remote monitoring to provide occupancy data giving transparency for the responsible use of public funds • User-paid access to leverage visitor demand and help offset asset up-keep

2

4

Resident Community • Receives modern and functional community asset that is aligned to the environmental aesthetics

Visitor Community • Has access to conveniently located, attractive, modern and functional public amenities blocks that complement the scenic value of the area and improves overall visitor experience

Tourism New Zealand • Benefits from enhanced visitor experiences while showcasing New Zealand technology and innovation • Marketing approach is supported by “sympathetic technology” which appeals to the visitor segment categorised as “Active Considerers” who identify with the 100% Pure campaign

• Benefits from reduced environmental pollution

SOURCES The Press – record tourist numbers put pressure on towns – Jan 2016; Statistics New Zealand tsa 15 provisional year tables 1-14 – Mar 2015; Tourism New Zealand Corporate: www.tourismnewzealand.com – Oct 2016; Merino Sheep image courtesy of George Empson www.photomack.co.nz

Exeloo Ltd | 0800 393-566 | Auckland, New Zealand Sydney, Australia | Melbourne, Australia | San Luis Obispo, California

www.exeloo.com

NOVEMBER 2016 LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE

l

29

PARKS & RECREATION

PARKS OF THE FUTURE New technologies are changing how councils view and run recreational activities.

Billy Michels says they could make or break people’s relationship with fun.

What kinds of new technologies should we be looking out for?

The Internet of Things With the internet of things, everything can be monitored: park usage; soil condition; greenery. We can find out what’s popular in a park and determine why people visit a particular area or undertake a particular activity. Where are they going in the park and why? Are some areas more popular and does that mean some parts of the park are less visited and therefore unnecessary? What’s the condition of the park’s assets, both organic and built? Has there been too much stress on the swing set?

30 l www.localgovernmentmag.co.nz

Augmented Reality Games such as Pokemon Go have attracted people to parks recently. But that raises the question of whether these people are there for the park at all. Perhaps they see it simply as a convenient empty space.

Virtual reality (VR) could also be used to promote a park or activity. People could use VR to ‘tour’ several parks before deciding which one to visit.

This all begs the question of whether it is necessary to create, or maintain, real parks at all. If it’s possible to create parks in a virtual space, indistinguishable from the real thing, people could enjoy them without having to leave home. And if this were true, parks could have no physical or environmental boundaries.

Drones Drones could be used for public safety, in general or at largescale events, providing oversight over activity, plus security and monitoring.

Drones could also be used to monitor park assets, larger drones giving an overall view of park condition while smaller ones could be used to evaluate asset condition in closer detail.

There could be a scheduled morning flyover to look for trash and areas needing immediate maintenance.

Automated (Driverless) Vehicles and Robotics It hard to know quite where the concept of automated vehicles ends and robotics begins. Automated vehicles are not just those currently being trialled on the road but could also be used to maintain our recreational areas, such as automated mowers, and lawn or hedge trimmers. These devices would work afterhours and without supervision to minimise disruption to availability to recreational facilities.

Ultimately, this might also include some sort of automated device to weed the gardens – not unlike the Roomba vacuum cleaners.

Emergency service vehicles could also be automated.

Guides, be it in gardens or the greater outdoors could be robotic. Safety could be provided by roaming robotic devices, as could medical assistance and mobility.

And if more and more people are arriving in automated vehicles, which they may not own, will parking spaces still be required, or will we just need a drop-off zone?

Nanotechnology Nanotech paint that won’t allow water or other paints to stick could mean councils never again have to clean up graffiti. And clothes that never get dirty or smell.

How could this new technology influence views on recreational activity?

Technology can’t, in itself, make people take part in a recreational activity although it can help to enhance, educate and inform. The challenge for councils will be to use technology in a way that enhances the way people see recreation.

This in turn may cause our notion of recreation to change.

Robots, drones and automated vehicles could virtually eliminate any risk, which may then reduce the excitement normally associated with the great outdoors and ‘fun’.

On the other hand, it could provide far greater entertainment through full-immersion virtual reality.

What do councils need to do differently in the light of this new technology?

Councils need to start planning to implement new technologies which can be used to maintain and improve recreational activities. Much of this is related to how we maintain those assets. However, other technology can be used to improve the experience by providing people with interactive opportunities to discover more about the environments they are in and also to provide spaces in which people can play. Some sort of feedback loop is also required in order for the council to learn from the user, while users are also encouraged to return.

One area of particular interest should be the internet of things which has the potential to provide enormous amounts of information regarding the environment, the people using facilities and asset condition.

Could you give some examples of where new technologies are already changing recreational activities?

In a much wider sense technologies like GPS have already been proven. Wearable technology is on the cusp of making significant improvements, providing bio-feedback, producing power (for built-in tech), maintaining ideal temperatures, monitoring health and activity levels. LG • Billy Michels is IT manager at Waikato Regional Council and president of the Association of Local Government Information Management (ALGIM). billy.michels@waikatoregion.govt.nz Billy Michels is talking about the future of parks at the NZRA National Conference being held from November 9 to 11 in Queenstown. For more information on the conference go to: bit.ly/NZRA_National_Conference.

>>

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

NOVEMBER 2016 LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE

l

31

PARKS & RECREATION

AUCKLAND’S GREEN PLANS FOR ITS

4000 PARKS Much more than fun and games

Auckland Council will invest more than $190 million into upgrading the playing capacity of the city’s sports parks over the next 10 years. This is a prime opportunity to apply green design philosophies. By Mark Bowater and Tracy Talbot.

S

ports parks play a critical role in Auckland Council’s vision to become the world’s most liveable city. But until now council’s parks, sport and recreation department has developed these parks without acknowledging the fundamental role green infrastructure plays in sustainable design.

With over 4000 parks across the Auckland region, 224 dedicated sports parks and 800 winter sports field platforms, sports parks make fundamental social, economic and environmental contributions to the community.

Conversely, ongoing development, upgrades and maintenance of sports parks contribute to the depletion of natural resources through high potable water consumption, high energy use and use of materials during construction and redevelopment.

Auckland Council has recognised the effects of urban intensification and is moving towards countering the negative impacts from this increased growth by committing to environmental action and ‘green growth’ through the Auckland Plan, the Low Carbon Auckland Plan and the Parks and Open Spaces Strategic Action Plan.

32 l www.localgovernmentmag.co.nz

It is championing environmental sustainability, low-impact design philosophies and innovative use of green technologies.

To complement its technical capabilities, the parks, sport and recreation department partnered with Opus International Consultants to develop a green infrastructure guidance document that provides best practice research, guiding principles and actions.

The key driver for both the department and Opus was to develop a guidance document that staff and other local government organisations could use as a tool to consider alternative options to current practice. As such, the key priorities of the guidance document were to provide: • Green infrastructure guiding principles; • Green infrastructure guiding actions; and, • National and international case studies.

GUIDING PRINCIPLES Green infrastructure guiding principles were developed to provide a simple framework for staff to refer to when considering incorporating green infrastructure into their projects.

Firstly, the emphasis was on a design-led approach.

To ensure the strategic goals are met, it is critical that the strategic planning is a priority for the department.

A good example of a regional approach is the awardwinning Hoboken Green Infrastructure Plan for New Jersey in the US. The scheme, which received a 2014 Outstanding Plan Award, demonstrates how a successful framework based on key principles of connectivity and sustainability can integrate both green and grey infrastructure.

Secondly, sports parks need to be designed to ensure a low carbon footprint: ultimately a zero-carbon sports park

would be the preferred outcome. Recycling and repurposing structures and pavements within sports parks will assist in mitigating the effects of sports park development.

Recycling products including plastic, rubber and asphalt will reduce waste going to landfill, incorporate lifecycle thinking, and avoid depletion of natural resources, thus resulting in a lower carbon footprint.

Thirdly, workable solutions also need to be innovative, and innovation wasn’t to be only about the obvious solutions.

One of the objectives of this document was to encourage staff to “think outside of the box”.

To date, very few green infrastructure and green

The lungs of a city • Auckland Council wants to cut the region’s energy use by 40 percent by 2040, water use by 20 percent by 2025, and have zero waste by 2040.

• Yet the city is growing at an unprecedented rate.

• Auckland’s over 4000 parks conserve natural heritage and provide places for people to touch nature.

• They also form a key part of the green infrastructure network, helping to manage stormwater, improve air quality and mitigate climate change.

• Auckland Council’s parks, sport and recreation department is championing environmental sustainability, low-impact design philosophies and innovative use of green technologies.

• A key outcome of council’s work with Opus will be a set of green engineering / infrastructure design guidelines, and a 3D graphic visual of a ‘model’ sustainable sports park.

engineering solutions have been applied to natural and synthetic turf fields. For example, current practice when draining a field drains excess water away and potable water is then purchased for irrigation (approximately 1.5 million litres per annum per couch grass sports field).

This practice has a high long-term repeat cost and is not considered environmentally sound. However, with the development of systems that can be recycled, to belowground water-capture systems that permit the retained water to be utilised elsewhere, sustainability and whole-of-life costs are now part of the decision-making process.

Additionally, components for synthetic turf fields, such as new base layer products for synthetic turfs, can now be substituted for gravel, drainage and shock pads, thus simplifying the construction process and minimising waste.

Through applying a design-led approach and using innovative solutions, the department can find effective ways to not only meet community demand for sports parks, but achieve sustainability in design.

GUIDING ACTIONS The following green infrastructure guiding actions were developed to support the implementation of green infrastructure during the phases of planning, development and redevelopment.

• Embed the principles of green infrastructure during project planning, design and construction; • Establish baseline data, and model and map the potential for green infrastructure across sport parks; • Understand the benefits of green and grey infrastructure lifecycles through detailed business cases and whole-of-life cost analysis; and,

NOVEMBER 2016 LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE

l

33

PARKS & RECREATION

Main image: Warkworth Showgrounds: New Zealand’s first fully lit LED sports precinct.

Inset: Nixon Park, Kingsland: Installation of a hybrid natural / synthetic sports field is a first for New Zealand.

PILOT PROJECTS The following pilot projects demonstrate how council staff have already used the guidance document as a resource to guide and change decision-making.

Warkworth Showgrounds This is New Zealand’s first fully light emitting diode (LED) lit sports precinct. Energy-efficient LED lighting has been used on sports fields, hockey field, netball courts and amenity lighting, paving the way for use of this technology.

Furthermore, when considering sports field lighting and amenity lighting options, LEDs can provide lifecycle efficiencies that make them less expensive over time and contribute to lessening the carbon footprint.

Nixon Park, Kingsland The first installation of a hybrid natural / synthetic sports field is currently underway. A hybrid pitch was chosen to lessen the environmental impacts of a full synthetic pitch, yet still achieve two thirds of the increased playing capacity.

Scotts Point, Hobsonville This is a new sports park development currently being planned in a rapidly developing strategic housing area. Green infrastructure design guidelines will be used, as will a new infrastructure sustainability (IS) rating tool, to assess how effectively sustainability has been incorporated into the development of the park. This development, and use of the IS rating tool, is New Zealand’s first sustainable sports precinct.

NZRA National Conference Mark Bowater and Tracy Talbot are presenting on this topic at the NZRA National Conference being held from November 9 to 11 in Queenstown. For more information on the conference go to: bit.ly/NZRA_National_Conference.

34 l www.localgovernmentmag.co.nz

•E ncourage use of green infrastructure and green engineering principles through trialling, innovating and implementing new technologies and solutions.

SUMMARY The department recognises that the current approach to sports park design and construction is fairly prescriptive, and only addresses the issue of a shortfall in playing hours. But in future we want staff to ask the question, “How can we increase hours of play, and incorporate green infrastructure principles”.

If staff begin to incorporate green infrastructure and green technology within capital projects, and then we can demonstrate how this contributes towards achieving Auckland Council’s strategic goals of reducing our carbon footprint, we have achieved what we set out to do.

We recognise that our generation tend to live in the now, and take for granted the resources we have around us; we feel little pressure to provide for the future.

Yet, if we design and construct with tomorrow’s generation in mind, our city and our communities will thrive on the social, environmental and economic benefits that green infrastructure solutions will leave. The journey to understanding where, when and to what extent green infrastructure practices should become part of future planning, development and redevelopment of sports parks has begun. LG •M ark Bowater is manager parks for Auckland Council.

Mark.Bowater@aucklandcouncil.govt.nz • Tracy Talbot is work group manager infrastructure development at Opus International Consultants. tracy.talbot@opus.co.nz

FLUID THINKIN Water. It’s the world’s most important resource.

But with our climate growing increasingly volatile, the way we manage it, treat it, and consume it has become more important than ever.

Fortunately, we understand water’s ability to enhance our natural systems better than anyone.

From flood risk management to creating water sensitive cities, our specialist water infrastructure and environmental professionals have the global experience needed to help you implement the most effective water management solutions possible.

And we do it for one very simple reason.

To make life better.

l

35

HG/002

NOVEMBER 2016 LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS PROVIDE

RECREATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES

Three Auckland projects show how engineering-led projects can evolve through early consultation and involvement of landscape design, low-impact stormwater design and ecology. By Sarah Collins and Larissa Moyle.

W

e have learned through our experience as landscape architects that infrastructure development or upgrade projects can be about much more than environmental design. Projects have developed and created recreation opportunities. Three such projects we have been involved with are the Watercare Services, Mangere Watercare Coastal Walkway; La Rosa Reserve in Auckland’s Green Bay; and Te Auaunga Awa, Oakley Creek through Walmsley and Underwood Parks. These last two projects are in Auckland Council parks and are primarily stormwater management projects.

As designers we are concerned by whether the community will ultimately benefit from our design decisions, not just the asset owner who commissioned the project, as the community is the ultimate client. These projects captured the imagination of the community, which we consider a

successful design outcome.

All of these projects add an interconnectedness both within local communities and within cities; in this case Auckland.

Infrastructure – be it stormwater, wastewater, transport or electricity transmission – is generally linear. When it is redeveloped it becomes an area of community focus and part of an open space network which links not only communities, but ecological corridors that are pathways for invertebrates and birds.

The first project, the Watercare Coastal Walkway, was initially developed when the Mangere Wastewater Treatment Plant was upgraded. The project began in the mid-1990s and the upgraded Mangere Wastewater Treatment Plant opened in 2004. The project included the removal of some 500 hectares of oxidation ponds and the construction of white shell beaches and bird roost areas.

Te Auaunga Awa: Children’s art displayed at the open day envisioned the redeveloped park.

36 l www.localgovernmentmag.co.nz

La Rosa: The planting day became a vibrant community event.

Boffa Miskell worked with Watercare and local community groups to design the open space components of the project.

This included over 300,000 plants being planted and more than 12 kilometres of pathway, boardwalk and viewing points, including a bird hide being developed.

Since the initial project, Watercare has continued to develop additional connections and areas. Most recently a decommissioned pump station at the eastern end of the Puketutu causeway has been transformed as a resting area on the pathway, with seating and interpretive signage.

Now 15 years since the initial development, the Watercare Coastal Walkway is much used and loved by the local community and is a popular weekend outing. The plantings provide food and shelter for a diverse range of birdlife, including tens of thousands of sandpipers, godwits and other migratory birds that head every year to the Manukau Harbour to escape the northern winter.

They in turn draw ornithologists from throughout the world who come to view the migratory bird phenomenon. Despite being known in this world sense, the area awaits discovery by more Aucklanders.

The second project, La Rosa Reserve in West Auckland, was one of former mayor Len Brown’s “100 days projects”. Initially a stream daylighting project, we envisioned the transformation from it being piped to an open rehabilitated stream, where it would be one where the community could interact with water and the wildlife would return.

The community came into the project late, but seized the opportunity: planting days were community events, schools participated with installing art, a community orchard was planted and the redeveloped kindergarten now sits behind a transparent fence, embracing its connection with the wider park. Local weavers maintain the flax collection planted through iwi consultation.

The revitalised stream is flanked by boardwalks and bridges and the large rock stepping stones through the watercourse are a favourite shortcut for children. What was a wet boggy local reserve is now a vibrant community park.

The final project, Te Auaunga Awa, is a flood management project led by the community and guided by social outcomes.

The Owairaka and Wesley communities have been involved from the outset and the outcomes are far-reaching.

Credit where it’s due The Watercare Coastal Walkway: Watercare Services; the Mangere WTP Community Liaison Group; HEB Landscapes.

La Rosa Reserve: Auckland Council, engineering design consultants; Ecomatters Trust; HEB Landscapes.

Te Auaunga Awa: Auckland Council; Puketapapa Local Board; AECOM; McKoy & Heine Architects; artist, Filipe Tohi; representatives of: Te Kawerau Maki, Ngai Tai Ki Tamaki, Ngati Tamaoho, Te Akitai, Waiohua-Tamaki, Ngati Te Ata and Ngati Whatua Orakei; representatives of: Friends of Oakley Creek, Migrant Action Trust, Wesley Reconnect, Roskill Together, Earth Action Trust and Puketapapa Active Transport Haven.

Flood management is sought in the area around this linear park, where Oakley Creek runs through Walmsley and Underwood Parks, in which the stream was channelised during the 1920s. The park is surrounded by single lot units and in a 100-year flood event over 150 floor levels flood.

Approximately half of the residential units are Housing New Zealand properties and when the flooding risk is removed an opportunity for intensification and redevelopment has been opened up.

Early community involvement through school participation and open days, and workshops involving a number of groups will see a true community outcome. This will embrace the cultures of the community and encourage active play through experiencing the local environment. Walkways, playgrounds, stream revitalisation and biodiverse planting to create ecological corridors for wildlife and public art are all part of the wider recreational outcome under development. LG • S arah Collins and Larissa Moyle, both landscape architects at Boffa Miskell, will make a wider presentation on this topic at the NZRA National Conference, Queenstown 9 – 11 November.

>>

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

NOVEMBER 2016 LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE

l

37

TRAINING

These tender evaluators found training and qualification in procurement was interesting, engaging and fun – and it made an immediate difference to their workplace practices.

MAKING THE HORSE DRINK How to embed training in council practices

T

he reactions of council staff to training are not always positive. It’s distracting, takes time out of urgent projects, and often it can be doubtful whether it has any ongoing impact on work practices. The old adage that 'you can take a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink' applies to traditional training carried out in many council workplaces.

So how can you make your investment in training have a positive and lasting impact on the way your staff carry out their jobs? Tony McKenna from The Skills Organisation and Caroline Boot from Clever Buying say for up-skilling and a qualification to do a job properly, the content must be 100 percent relevant so the benefits are clear – both for the learners personally, and for their roles within council.

Tony and Caroline have put together a quick-fire list to guide local authorities in selecting or implementing training that makes a lasting and positive difference in council workplaces.

1. Start with a rigorous training needs analysis and make sure the learners understand the reasons for the training and the benefits they will achieve through up-skilling.

2. Base all training around real-life scenarios. Contextual learning puts employees directly into the types of workplace activities they do every day, and introduces new techniques to manage those.

3.

Maximise the degree that training is student-led.

This means there will be little or no lecturing, death by PowerPoint or talking by the trainer. Instead, students will learn by doing, discussing, interacting, and posing and answering their own questions.

38 l www.localgovernmentmag.co.nz

4. Appeal to every sense. Great training activities combine a variety of listening, looking, talking, moving, writing and physical activities so every type of learner has a channel to receive and analyse the information. Make it fun, with a variety of props and techniques that change groups and give trainees choices of the contexts they work with to practise and consolidate their new skills. Dice, coloured counters, silly hats, cards with different scenarios to choose from, videos, discussion prompts and competitions all help to engage the trainees and make the learning memorable.

5. Follow through by engaging training that leads to a recognised qualification. You’ll gain leverage from your investment, when learners see what’s in it for them. New skills, which are proven with a relevant qualification that brings them recognition within your council, go a long way towards motivating staff to get the most from their training.

6.

Debrief and follow up. The best training courses result in agreed initiatives – ideally, those that follow through to a qualification. Learning materials are reinforced through practical application within a week, preferably through provision of job aids or templates that guide your graduates through new processes. Assessment against the standards that make up the qualification allow an organisation to see the effectiveness of the training. Armed with that knowledge, you can measure how staff are applying their learning in their roles over time and see tangible benefits in improved performance.

If training is worth your investment upfront, then it’s worth ongoing efforts to bolt home the benefits in the form of real change in workplace practice. LG

TECHNICAL BRIEFINGS This paper was presented at the Water New Zealand Stormwater Conference in Nelson earlier this year.

GETTING ALL THE MULTIDISCIPLINARY DUCKS IN A ROW – STREAM WATERWAY DESIGN Amber Murphy & Iain Smith (both from Beca), Shelley McMurtrie (EOS Ecology) & Vaughan Keesing (Boffa Miskell)

ABSTRACT Waterways are often the most visible feature of a stormwater system for the communities they pass through. Communities can be highly engaged with their valued waterways and often seek ways to restore, interact with and improve their environmental sustainability.

Therefore, waterway design must deliver hydraulic engineering performance, ecological values as well as other community concerns like aesthetics. This requires a balance of often conflicting perspectives.

Hydraulically, waterways need to convey baseflow, small storm freshes, and floods. However, the other drivers result in the form of a waterway being complex, needing to incorporate varying morphology, slope, ground conditions, vegetation, habitat features, engineering structures and spatial constraints, to list but a few.

Accommodating all this is complicated by competing requirements; for example, achieving flood conveyance while providing a healthy, sustainable habitat.

The first would see wide, open, smooth, stable waterway cross-sections while the second seeks nearly the opposite with narrower, dynamic normal-flow channels incorporating shading, plant cover, bank undercutting and variations in velocity and depth.

The full paper presents two different project examples where hydraulic, ecological, landscape and other multidisciplinary design elements have been successfully balanced, and identifies the key project features that can be applied in other waterway designs.

Firstly, Christchurch City Council’s Dudley Creek Flood Remediation project aims to restore the preearthquake flood risk to the Flockton Street Area. It involves two kilometres of flood channel widening through private property and road reserve, plus a 790 metre flood bypass conduit.

In the second example, NZ Transport Agency’s MacKays to Peka Peka Expressway on the Kapiti Coast includes over five kilometres of new and enhanced waterway, to mitigate that lost to the Expressway.

This too must balance the significant flood risk that is a feature of urban and rural areas around the project, while supplying suitable ecological mitigation.

INTRODUCTION The importance of waterways to our communities has risen in recent years through the increase in environmental, amenity and cultural awareness, and because of their prominent positions in local neighbourhoods. In addition, recent floods around the country have reinforced the significance of waterways as drainage conduits important to managing urban flood risk.

Lowland, urbanised waterways have varying functions, physical features and amenity values, all of which interrelate. Historically, waterways with land drainage functions or in urban areas look and feel very different to those that have remained within reserves or more natural settings. Waterways to relieve upstream flooding or provide pastoral drainage are often engineered and maintained to this purpose.

Lowland streams today generally suffer from high nutrient, high sediment, high erosion, high seasonal algae, low riparian vegetation cover, decreasing fish passage, degrading water quality, degrading habitat and lowering capacity to sustain the full diversity of life. Changing the way we construct and manage urban waterways and their surrounding catchment is key to reversing this seemingly inevitable decline.

Waterways are complex systems with interacting functions and features, so to undertake a waterway design, these, along with how they vary, need to be understood and factored in as best as possible.

A multidisciplinary understanding and regular communication on project aims and the evolving design is crucial. Different design disciplines will often assess waterway features in conflicting ways. Waterways require physical space and when this is constrained engineering solutions eventuate. Multiple waterway functions, features and amenity values can be accommodated in a design if the implications with each other are carefully understood. LG

Dudley Creek Work Package 1 works complete and in flood October 2016.

>>

www.localgovernmentmag.co.nz Go to our website for the full paper. Search: bit.ly/StreamWaterwayDesign

NOVEMBER 2016 LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE

l

39

SPECIAL FEATURE

F O E R U T U F E H T

Wastewater management

Water quality, population growth or decline, consent processes, asset condition and performance, new technologies, workforce skills and, perhaps most crucially, affordability: Patricia Moore outlines the challenges facing councils in managing their wastewater assets over the next decade.

A

UN-Water brief, released at the conclusion of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals agenda last year, focused on the global problems and challenges created by neglect in the area of wastewater management and recognised the link with a range of other water, and non-water, issues. It highlighted the need for wastewater management and water quality to “stop being the poor relations and receive attention in their own right”.

While perhaps not a poor relation, wastewater management can be a political hot potato. The recent local body elections saw public concerns around potable water quality voiced and, in Whanganui, unhappy ratepayers, faced with shelling out millions of dollars to replace a treatment plant commissioned in 2007 and already defunct, made their displeasure clear.

The quality of our river water has also been making news with the ongoing debate over whether it’s acceptable that it’s ‘wade-able’ rather than ‘swim-able’. “We see the drive to improve river quality only increasing,” says Robert White, ACENZ board member and Auckland water and wastewater group manager at GHD, “with all sources, including wastewater effluent discharges coming under scrutiny.”

40 l www.localgovernmentmag.co.nz

Consultants spoken to by Local Government Magazine indicate widespread issues around wastewater management which they believe will challenge councils over the next decade. These range from water quality to population growth – or lack of it, consent processes, asset condition and performance, new technologies, a skilled workforce and, perhaps most crucially, affordability. Maintaining the same level of service or providing an improved level to keep up with growth will require substantial investment.

Mott Macdonald’s Steve Couper, water sector leader, Asia, Pacific and Australasia, notes a number of smaller local authorities are already struggling to meet basic statutory obligations, such as consent compliance, and the current funding arrangements make improvements or further mandates unaffordable.

To expect a small community to have the funding capacity to meet first world environmental compliance through a politically-driven vehicle is simply burying your head in the sand, says Steve. “Instead of talking rate reductions, where’s the hero who chants ‘I will stop polluting your environment and obtain the necessary funding?’.

“The challenge [for local government] is being willing to step into the leadership vacuum left by central government and

Left to right: Robert White; Steve Couper; Ash Deshpande; and Luke Meys.

make them understand that this critical infrastructure needs clear and concise pricing regulation, an improved funding mechanism – not one related to a three-year political cycle and competing with other territorial authority obligations – and that recognises the unique externalities associated with wastewater.”

With increasing pressure to reduce rate rises, councils will be forced to review their infrastructure budgets and consider the economic benefits of any scheme, predicts Ash Deshpande, lead process water and wastewater engineer with Harrison Grierson.

“Wastewater treatment plants are expensive to upgrade and faced with pressures from environmental groups and regional councils, this could be a major strain on operational budgets.”

Advances such as energy recovery and biosolids management options used overseas are likely to become more common in New Zealand, suggests Luke Meys, Opus market director water, environmental and local government.

However, there are examples of high-tech, high-cost solutions being recommended for small communities where technological enhancements to existing assets may be a more balanced option.

“Establishing systems that balance affordability, technology and higher environmental standards, with community expectations that those standards can be achieved within a reasonable cost, is one of the biggest challenges facing the industry.”

Ash says with infrastructure planning based on population growth models, the housing boom and renewed developer interest are creating a disruption. “High immigration and housing expansion mean the current growth models will need tweaking, as will those in centres where the population is declining.”

Increased developer interest will involve rethinking wastewater networks, treatment and disposal. “Any changes to the volume of wastewater will need additional treatment plants and may trigger a change in resource consent conditions, in itself a major challenge.”

Luke says issues around consents and consent renewals are another concern. “There’s currently anecdotal evidence these are time consuming, confrontational between the various stakeholders, costly, and sometimes sub-optimal in terms of outcome.

“Importantly these conditions of consent need to consider the affordability of the communities that are being asked to pay.”

Retaining a skilled and suitably resourced operational

workforce is another potential problem for local government; with the current demographic in the 40 to 50 year-old band, retirements over the next decade will see a significant reduction in numbers. As issues around wastewater management become more complex and the available solutions increase, councils may find they lack the necessary expertise to handle them.

“Contractors, plant owners, industry training organisations and trainers all need to encourage a healthy supply of welltrained operators,” says Luke.

So will there be changes to the role of local authorities in wastewater management? The complexity of the issues and the range of solutions around wastewater management will continue to increase, he says.

“It’s probable that some councils that do not have extensive and recent expertise in dealing with them will need to seek advice from those who have these skills. Whether that’s in the form of shared services or outsourcing is unclear.”

The Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No.2) seeks to facilitate the establishment of cross-boundary council-controlled organisations such as are already in place with Wellington Water.

If cross-boundary CCOs are formed, it is anticipated that it will enable the larger organisations to employ more specialists, allowing a better understanding of the issues, required outcomes and whole-of-life costs.

Mott MacDonald's Steve Couper says local authorities are quite capable of delivering first-world water services – what they lack is suitable economic and environmental regulation, and a secure long-term hypothecated funding mechanism with economies of scale.

“With this we would see many changes including compliance with water quality requirements and greater expertise and capability within organisations around wastewater management.” LG • Patricia Moore is a freelance writer. mch@xtra.co.nz

COMING UP

>>

In the December issue • The future of foreshore management • The future of playground design

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

NOVEMBER 2016 LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE

l

41

HELMUT MODLIK / ON TRAINING H E LM UT MODLI K, CEO, CON N EXIS. HelmutM@connexis.org.nz

Lessons from Nelson / Tasman Collaboration is the first step in a mandate for change.

I IT WOULD EMBARRASS MOST TO KNOW HOW FEW PEOPLE INVOLVED IN PROCURING MULTIMILLIONDOLLAR ASSETS ON A REGULAR BASIS HAVE THE FORMAL TRAINING AND QUALIFICATIONS TO DO SO.

recently had the pleasure of attending the inaugural Constructive NZ Construction Forum – an ambitious platform for effecting change in the building and construction industry. The aim of the forum was to generate debate and discussion around how we can best deliver the enormous wall of construction work which is planned for New Zealand.

The forum attracted more than 500 attendees from sectors including local and central government, and was the first time that key influencers and decision-makers have come together on such a scale.

The forum highlighted the need for stakeholders to work collaboratively to deliver the step-change New Zealand needs. This includes central and local government; indeed, it is fair to say that in areas such as procurement and regulation, government needs to be at the very heart of such change.

Speaking at the forum, MP Hon Bill English observed that collaboration does not come easily in the government sector. Traditionally, central government has had a limited role in respect of what occurs on the ground with community infrastructure and assets. However, he agreed with raised concerns about continuing on the current trajectory of operating in silos, and urged authorities to work together. This is something which Connexis strongly supports.

While collaboration certainly isn’t the easy route, the benefits of sharing knowledge, expertise and experience are significant and far-reaching.

Nelson City Council and Tasman District Council, for example, have been collaborating successfully around procurement for over 10 years. Their groundbreaking initiative, which led to the introduction of minimum contractor training requirements into their Codes of Practice, has been a great success. And while not without teething problems, ultimately the benefits have been huge.

Their approach to procurement has come so far in fact that as of this year, both councils will be working from a shared Land Development Manual, which will enable contractors to tender for jobs within both districts using a

42 l www.localgovernmentmag.co.nz

single identical process.

How enormously beneficial would it be if such an approach were adopted by all local authorities in the country?

There is absolutely no reason why it can’t be.

It won’t be easy, and it won’t happen overnight, but the Nelson Tasman case study demonstrates that such an approach can be hugely successful.

Nelson and Tasman have already done the hard yards, and other councils can learn a lot from them.

The standardising of procurement practice has been supported by the standardising of competence in the civil construction industry.

With the 2015 introduction of the Civil Trades regime, there is now a clear and shared view of what a competent, qualified civil constructor looks like.

This will make it easier than ever before for councils to ensure they have the right people with the right skills working on their infrastructure assets.

In addition to Civil Trades, Connexis has recently launched a new NZ Certificate in Infrastructure Procurement Procedures, which standardises and recognises the skills of procurement professionals.

This qualification is the new industry benchmark, leveraging off best practice developed by the NZ Transport Agency. It will help to even up what is currently a very uneven playing field in terms of procurement skills across industry, local and central government.

The value to local government of having highly skilled and qualified procurement professionals is a no brainer, and it would embarrass most to know how few people involved in procuring multimillion-dollar assets on a regular basis have the formal training and qualifications to do so.

Connexis remains fully committed to collaborating with local government around procurement. As you read this, we will have just finished touring around New Zealand with the Civil Trades roadshow, talking to key decision makers around how we can work together. If we are all on the same page, everyone involved will win. LG

JEREMY ELWOOD / ON THE FUNNY STUFF COM E DIAN, ACTOR AN D WR ITE R. jeremy@jeremyelwood.com

Mobilising the masses Council Idol TV show anyone? Maybe that will work.

N ANYONE WHO TURNS UP WITH A COMPLETED BALLOT FORM CAN EXCHANGE IT FOR A SONG BOOK, GLOW-IN-THE-DARK NECKLACE, OR TEAM PENNANT.

ow that the dust has settled from the most recent round of local body elections, around the country there are candidates celebrating their new jobs or out looking for alternative ones. One thing they can all agree on, however, is that the excitement of a new direction or the satisfaction of being able to continue what they’ve started is tempered slightly by the disappointing voter turnout.

I should mention right now that at the time of writing none of the above is strictly true. Due to the nature of deadlines, I’m writing this after the final day for posting my vote but before the polls have officially closed.

So it’s possible that by the time you read it there has been a massive rush of voters handing in their ballot papers, and the percentage of those who have taken part has leapfrogged all previous records.

In which case, you can still read on, treating this as a nostalgic piece about the bad old days where less than 40 percent of eligible voters took part in local democracy, and be pleased that they’re behind us now. But I doubt it.

I’m always surprised at the low participation rate in local body elections. As I’ve talked about in this column before, I feel that my local council and mayor have a much more immediate and direct impact on my day-to-day life than the Beehive does.

As such, I look forward to receiving my ballot papers and I really do read the candidate biography booklet cover to cover before making my choices. Clearly, I’m in the minority.

So what can be done to inspire more people to have their say? Well, there are some practical, serious answers to that question – working to perfect a secure, reliable online system for electronic voting, for starters. But let’s be

honest, those aren’t what I’m hired to write about.

So here are some other ideas.

Pitch a Council Idol style TV show, where all the candidates appear each week and are voted off by viewers until only the requisite number remain standing. This could include a series of debates, a talent section, a dance-off, or, most usefully, teaming the contestants up to renovate a council house so it can be provided to a needy family at the end of the series.

Launch one of those click-bait Facebook quizzes that pollute everyone’s timeline on a daily basis: “Which mayoral candidate are you?” “Here are the people running for your local DHB. When you see number 12, you won’t believe your eyes!” “Cut down on unnecessary council spending with this one amazing tip!”

Put the elections on TradeMe with a $1 reserve, and allow voters to bid on their favourite candidates in one cent increments.

There’s no need to collect any real money at the end, although that’s one way to boost council coffers at the same time as electing the people who will be in charge of spending their contents.

Finally, move the election date to coincide with a major event such as Christmas in the Park, Diwali or a World Cup Final. Anyone who turns up with a completed ballot form can exchange it for a song book, glow-in-the-dark necklace, or team pennant.

Of course, we could just try stressing the importance of having your say in who will be running the place you live in for the next three years, of participation in a democracy, and of your civic duty to yourself and your neighbours.

Because that’s been working oh so well for oh so long. LG

SUBSCRIBE NOW for only $82 (including GST and postage within New Zealand) and get your own copy each month for 12 issues.

That’s a saving of 20% off the cover price.

NZ LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE LG MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTION NOVEMBER 2016

CALL US NOW. 09 636 5715 or email admin@contrafed.co.nz www.localgovernmentmag.co.nz

NOVEMBER 2016 LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE

l

43

SARAH MACKY / ON LEGAL ISSUES PARTN E R, H EAN EY & PARTN E R S. sarah.macky@heaneypartners.com

Building claims Does post-remediation stigma exist?

I IT IS EVEN ARGUABLE THAT A REMEDIATED HOME WILL LIKELY EXPERIENCE AN INCREASE IN ITS VALUE AS A RESULT OF IT HAVING BEEN REMEDIATED.

n a significant number of the building defects cases that our firm defends on behalf of councils, property owners will often claim that their properties will suffer an ongoing diminution in value or stigma despite their properties being fully repaired.

We have seen such claims made in respect of monolithic-style buildings as well as weatherboard or more traditional types of construction.

The opinion evidence that we have amassed on behalf of councils when defending these claims is that properties do not suffer a residual stigma because repairs have been carried out to them.

Rather, if they suffer a stigma, they suffer it for reasons other than the fact that repairs have been completed. This is certainly the opinion of Dr Michael Rehm, author of research article Judging a house by its cover and senior lecturer in the Department of Property at the University of Auckland.

What has become clear is that monolithically-clad houses in particular do have a residual stigma whether they have been repaired or not.

In Dr Rehm’s opinion, this is because prospective buyers of monolithically-clad houses will often associate leaky building syndrome with these types of properties and will discount the amount they are prepared to pay for them.

This general leaky building stigma is not a loss that can be fairly visited upon defendant parties such as councils in the context of court or Weathertight Homes Tribunal claims. This is because this general market stigma exists not because of a council’s involvement at the property.

Rather it has resulted from media attention surrounding leaky building syndrome and a general perception in the market place that monolithically-clad buildings are more prone to weathertightness failure.

Post-remediation stigma has largely been

44 l www.localgovernmentmag.co.nz

rejected by the courts and the Weathertight Homes Tribunal except for a small number of cases.

The case for post-remediation stigma not existing can be demonstrated using Dr Rehm’s example of two identical monolithically-clad houses, one having been well maintained with no history of leaking (house A) and the other having leaked and having been remediated (house B), both offered for sale at the same price. Which house would a prudent purchaser elect to buy?

It is assumed that house B has been properly remediated pursuant to a building consent application with a code compliance certificate being issued following completion of the repairs.

As part of house B’s repair process, the timber framing has been replaced where required and all timber left in place has been treated. The house will have a cavity enabling the walls to drain and dry, leaky building experts will have been involved in the repair and the house will have a new limitation period within which a hypothetical prospective purchaser can bring a claim.

In such circumstances, it is Dr Rehm’s opinion that a hypothetical prospective purchaser would perceive that house B has less risk of suffering future weathertightness failure because it has been remediated, compared with house A. As such, it is Dr Rehm’s opinion that a hypothetical purchaser would elect to buy house B. In conclusion, the evidence suggests that all monolithically-clad homes are subject to general market stigma whether or not they have suffered from leaking.

Given the analysis above, a remediated home is less likely to suffer stigma compared with an unremediated house. Interestingly, it is even arguable that a remediated home will likely experience an increase in its value as a result of it having been remediated. 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

Getting on with works Five changes to create better relationships.

C

BY OPENING UP LINES OF COMMUNICATION MANY ISSUES CAN BE RESOLVED AND TOGETHER WE CAN CREATE GREAT OUTCOMES FOR THE WHOLE COMMUNITY.

ollectively, local authorities are responsible for more than $100 billion of community assets that provide essential everyday services. The members of Civil Contractors New Zealand do the vast majority of the maintenance and capital works for local authorities. Having a healthy civil contracting industry is of critical importance to every local authority in the country because it means: • There will be the companies with the expertise, people and machinery you need to maintain existing and build new infrastructure; • There will be competition for the work that you tender so you know you’re getting a quality job at a fair price; and • There will be experienced and professional contractors that can help you deliver better services to your community through understanding your needs and bringing their expertise, innovation and practical knowledge to jobs.

When I was talking with a group of contractors recently the subject of how local authorities work came up. While not all the feedback was negative, and performance varies, here are some of the gems that new and returning councillors might want to consider: 1. The big budget underspend This is a real point of frustration for contractors who anticipate work coming to the market and then find it doesn’t happen or it gets delayed.

The continued inability of local authorities to bring planned work to market simply increases uncertainty and the ability for contractors to plan ahead, invest in equipment and develop the people who maintain and build your assets.

Assets, particularly our 3 waters infrastructure, are suffering from underinvestment and there are plans to increased spending (in the latest LTPs the average annual spending on capital is forecast to be $4.2 billion, compared to $3.7 billion in the previous LTPs which exclude Christchurch City Council). But we can’t even spend the money currently allocated.

2. The end-of-year rush We still see the classic end-of-year rush. The magic date of June 30 looms and there is a rush

of work underway. Those jobs that would have been much better to do over summer suddenly become a priority and are happening in the middle of winter.

3. No / low response to tender documents We still hear local authorities questioning why they did not receive the expected number of bids for a job. This is normally not because contractors have lots of work. Usually it has something to do with the tender process or the tender documents. Examples include: releasing tenders in December with a closing date of January; releasing a number of tenders for the same type of work at the same time (impact of continuity of work and a lack of resources to respond to all tenders); and the allocation of risk in the contract.

4. Experience – quality, health and safety Every local authority wants a quality job and there’s a lot of talk about whole-of-life costs and the importance of health and safety. Yet our members regularly report seeing, and at times fixing up, the work of inexperienced people (I hesitate to call them contractors). It is very frustrating for contractors who have invested in their staff and high-quality health and safety systems to be undercut by cowboys. Consistency is what we want to see.

5. Council staff churn Having to educate a third new council staff member in the past year. Contractors want a good relationship and know that the best results are achieved when we know what you, the client, want to achieve. Our members often see inconsistency created by staff churn. Councils need better induction systems and guidance on how things are done for new staff.

Both key elected council representatives and staff can, and should, engage with the local branch of Civil Contractors New Zealand. Just let me know if you need some contact details.

The branches represent a range of contractors from your region / area so provide a good overview and point of contact. By opening up lines of communication many of the above issues can be resolved and together we can create great outcomes for the whole community. LG

NOVEMBER 2016 LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE

l

45

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

Vote 2016: what have we learnt?

Lifting public engagement in local government.

A WE NEED TO CONTINUE TO ENGAGE MORE PEOPLE IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT, BOTH GENERALLY AND AT VOTING TIME.

t the time of writing turnout in the 2016 local elections looks to be around the same level as the 2013 elections. There are a range of factors driving the turnout numbers.

The metros were up, driven by Auckland and Wellington, while the provincial and rural sectors were slightly softer than usual. This appears to have been the result of the large number of areas where the mayoral race was either uncontested, or where there was a very strong incumbent.

On a positive note this would mean turnout has stabilised after a steady decline since 1989.

However, we need to ask ourselves is this turnout acceptable and if not, one thing is clear – we need to continue to engage more people in local government, both generally and at voting time.

An apparent disconnection between people and government is prevalent across Western democracies and is certainly not unique to New Zealand. There is no silver bullet for increasing voter turnout and countries the world over are seeking answers.

It’s a conversation everybody should be interested in having. After all, local government is the form of government closest to people’s daily lives. It shapes the place where people live and is the pavements we walk on, the roads we drive and cycle on, the water in our showers, and the parks, libraries and swimming pools we all use.

LGNZ is passionate about local democracy and communities having their say on the issues that matter to them. LGNZ’s guiding principle is “Local democracy powering community and national success” and its seven priority policies include governance and performance excellence, and strengthening local democracy.

For this year’s elections LGNZ, councils and a range of partners ran a 10-month Vote 2016 campaign to generate interest in local issues, motivate good quality candidates to stand and encourage voting. Through this process we worked together on a range of initiatives designed to lift engagement in the democratic

46 l www.localgovernmentmag.co.nz

process at the local level. This was a new initiative and has laid the foundations for ongoing work in this area.

LGNZ also has several pieces of work underway aimed at increasing engagement generally, not just in elections.

This includes the Local Government Excellence Programme, which is designed to not only lift council performance but also help councils better demonstrate and communicate the work they do. Our research has shown there is a lack of public knowledge of the full range of work local government does, which is part of the reason for low voter turnout over the past 20 years.

Helping the sector be clearer about the important role it plays in communities and people’s lives is one of our strategic goals. Last year we launched a communications programme designed to help councils tell their stories in engaging ways, and have had good uptake. We will continue to promote this throughout the sector as a means of demonstrating everything local government does.

Engaging younger people and minorities is another issue facing Western democracies. In the days leading up to the election much was said and written about the potential for online voting to lift voter turnout. LGNZ has been a strong advocate for introducing online voting and supported proposals to run trials during the election. We live in a digital world and, for young people especially, we need to be able to offer this as an option. Connecting with people digitally on an ongoing basis is necessary too.

But online voting will be one tool in the kit needed to increase voter participation. It should be used alongside postal voting, and LGNZ is interested in investigating other ways of drawing out more voters. A return to a dedicated polling day could be another option.

There are reasons to be optimistic about the future of local democracy in New Zealand, but collaborative work across many agencies is needed to ensure we continue making the progress we need. LG

Local government preparing for change ahead Right now newly elected members will be concentrating on the key issues facing their communities and preparing to get to work on responding to those issues over the next three years.

The start of a new triennium is also an important opportunity for the local government sector to consider the big strategic issues for New Zealand and the impact on our communities.

New Zealand faces a period of significant change in the coming decades, so it is important when councils make plans and decisions for their communities they are looking well beyond the three year term they have been elected for. Considering the challenges a changing future will bring and the implications of this for local government is vitally important.

LGNZ’s 2050 Challenge discussion document launched in July outlines the key the economic, social, cultural and environmental shifts New Zealand faces in the next 35 years.

The document highlights the areas where key shifts will occur: > urbanisation, liveable cities and changing demographics; > stewardship of our natural environment; > responding to climate change; > equality and cohesion; and > the future of work.

Whether it’s coping with increased urbanisation and what this means for cities and regions, responding to climate change, caring for our environment or the changing ways in which people work, challenges for local government lie ahead.

Submissions have been received and LGNZ will now prepare position papers further looking at the implications for local government of these major shifts, and propose a range of policy and operational responses.

Over the coming months as a new National Council is elected and we meet at Zone and Sector meetings LGNZ’s seven strategic policy priorities, which guide its work, will be refined to reflect the implications of these shifts on local government for the coming triennium.

LGNZ’s seven strategic priorities 1. Governance and performance excellence. While there are many strong performers in the sector we need to lift the bar higher.

2. A shared national approach to addressing regional development and growth across all of New Zealand.

The country’s economic growth strategy needs to consider the nation as a whole and the needs of regions.

3. Developing a sustainable funding model for local government. Alternatives to property-based taxes are required.

4. Leading effective infrastructure development and funding policies for water, transport and building and housing. We need to ensure infrastructure (and its funding) supports communities and enables economic growth.

5. Setting an agenda of regulatory reform and development of more effective policy setting in areas impacting local government. We need regulatory reform and a stronger relationship with central government policy setters to ensure an effective legislative framework.

6. Sector-led policy on important environmental issues for effective management of natural capital.

7. Strengthening local democracy and the value of local government. Advocating for stronger local democracy.

Visit lgnz.co.nz/assets/42597-LGNZ-2050-Challenge-Final-WEB-small.pdf to read the 2050 Challenge document.

47

EDITOR

EquiP’s Webinar Series Where they fit in the Elected Members/Mayors Induction programme Our congratulations on the successful election of newly elected members. Whether councillors are newly or re-elected, thoughts will now be turning to the term ahead.

Elected members we have spoken to have told us that this is a time of high excitement, coupled with a myriad of thoughts and questions. They tell us new members may be wondering how to best represent their community’s views and issues. They’ll be thinking about their fellow elected members, who they might be, how they’ll work together and what their strategic priorities are.

Hopefully by now your council has registered you to participate in the Elected Member Induction programme appropriate to your needs. This programme of events will help you build your knowledge and competency sequentially to help you achieve your community’s aspirations.

What is included in your induction programme, in sequential order 1. For those new to council, completion of a short digital module will provide detail about your new role, and prepare you to participate with re-elected participants in the rest of the programme.

If you are new to local government, completion of the digital module will enable you to: > describe the role of local government; > describe the role and responsibilities of a councillor, mayor and chief executive in local government; > describe the purpose and format of council meetings; > explain the purpose of the long-term plan and annual plan;

2. For all new and re-elected members, the 2016 GROW handbook provides the local government and regulatory information you need to reference throughout your term.

3. Participation in one of the induction workshops then introduces you to your support networks, and helps you start your strategic planning process for success.

By this stage of the programme you are eager to start working together to set your council’s strategic direction. You will be starting to put your learning into practice. This will prompt some new reflections and questions. Here’s where regular webinars offer support.

4. Three (or four for mayors) extra webinars will be available to elected members and mayors to add more detail and reflection to those topics you will be getting to grips with in the first few weeks.

The GROW Webinar Series then invites the wider council group’s participation. This allows you to join with a range of interested local government parties and ensures that everyone can participate in consistent messages and discussion. Access is available no matter what your location or council role. And if you have other commitments at the time of the live webinar, you may choose to view it ‘on demand’ at your convenience.

5. A series of eight weekly webinars based on the information provided in the GROW handbook. Build on the knowledge gained from this reference manual with real case studies, sharing of experiences and having your questions answered.

> desribe the process for getting new ideas onto the council plan; > explain the difference between governance and management in relation to local government roles and responsibilities; and > identify when a potential conflict of interest is present in relation to the Local Authorities (Members interests) Act 1968.

48

For more details, please visit lgnz.co.nz/home/equip/newly-electedmembers-2016/

Webinar Series Topics What topics will be covered in the webinars?

Elected Member Webinar 101 package

Mayors Webinar 101 package

1. First weeks’ review – answering your FAQs and issues.

1. First weeks’ review – answering your FAQs and issues.

2. Partnership – explain the role of Maori in council and community, and the benefits of partnership.

2. Setting Strategy – practical hints and tips.

3. Legal Issues

3. Strategic thinking

4. Finance for Mayors

Prior to the 101 webinars we will be gathering your questions to help inform the content that suits your need. The 101 webinars will be delivered between December 2016 and late January 2017.

The GROW Webinar Series

A series of 8 x weekly webinar sessions to discuss and share more information referencing the GROW handbook.

1. Decision-making and the long-term plan

5. Rules and regulations

2. Engagement and consultation

6. Meeting procedures

3. Council performance

7. Financial management and funding

4. Stewardship: looking after your assets

8. The Resource Management Act 1991

These webinars will be delivered between February and April 2017.

Completion of this series ends the induction phase of your 2016 – 2019 elected term.

Check our website lgnz.co.nz/home/equip/ for more details.

What happens next?

Contact jill.calogaras@lgnz.co.nz and the EquiP team if you would like a customised in-house team event to build your strategy and action plans.

We are here to support your success. Good luck!

At the same time, or subsequent to the formal induction, some of you will also be building your expertise by participating in some in-house, or public workshops. EquiP will provide a full range of learning activities, both digitally and face-to-face, to suit the topic and the audience.

49

The Final Word Co-regulation of water the best way forward Water and water management in New Zealand is a complex issue with few truly “sector-wide” issues. Ensuring the right decisions are made to meet diverse community needs means local government should play a leading role in the future of our water.

Water is a high priority for New Zealand’s local government sector.

There are few, if any, truly sector wide issues when it comes to water.

Improving performance must reflect this by avoiding one-size-fits-all initiatives. Because local government both represents the communities that rely on water services, and owns and operates the majority of the assets concerned, it must play the central role in leading the future of our water.

As owners and managers of the bulk of New Zealand’s three waters infrastructure - drinking, waste and stormwater – and with a major role in balancing the environmental and economic factors of freshwater, local government is at the forefront of water delivery and management in New Zealand.

Making sure we continue to enjoy the quality and quantity of water resources we are accustomed to in years to come is going to require new approaches and the flexibility to adapt to a range of different challenges.

Local Government New Zealand believes a strong, local government sector led approach to managing water will produce the best outcomes for our communities.

ient and sustainable th n efc ree a f o wa s n ter io t ss a t c ec e t p x

or

These include the cost ramifications of ever-increasing demand for higher levels of reliability, quality and resilience in drinking water supply, the impacts of climate change on stormwater management, and the growing need for the renewal of infrastructure as assets reach the ends of their useable lives. There are also a range of complex environmental, social and economic factors that pose challenging questions.

E

In the next 20 years there will be a number of major trends that will need to be addressed.

LGNZ believes creating a framework that assists water asset owners and operators to better understand customer needs and expectations, effectively manage and invest in physical assets, effectively recover costs, promotes efficient usage and provides for continual growth and learning is the best way forward to protect and enhance local delivery of water services.

We face a time of change and as a country we are in the middle of important discussions about how we meet these changing needs. Put simply, how will a small rural community that is losing population fund the infrastructure it needs?

How will a city with a growing population fund the future infrastructure for its residents and businesses? What impact will climate change have on the water systems we use? How can the primary sector grow while shrinking its environmental footprint?

LGNZ recently completed a major piece of work looking at the big water issues and decisions that need to be made to solve them. The 3 Waters project is the result of two years’ work to better understand the state of drinking, waste and stormwater infrastructure in New Zealand, the challenges that lie ahead and options for delivering best practice water infrastructure. It brought together representatives from local and central government and the water industry, and has substantially improved the level of data around the sector.

A key finding of this work is that a model of co-regulation, with the local government sector playing a leading role, is the best approach for ensuring good quality decisions are made and outcomes achieved.

50

For further information visit lgnz.co.nz/home/our-work/our-policypriorities/4.-infrastructure/3-waters-programme/

CONTRAFED

PUBLISHING CO. LTD THE VOICE OF NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRY

RESILIENT INFRASTRUCTURE

LGNZ EXCELLENCE AWARDS

SKATING ON THIN ICE?

Who pays? p26

All the finalists p34

Social media meets the Public Records Act p30

LGNZ'S DUNEDIN CONFERENCE

THE BLUE & THE GREEN

IMPROVE YOUR INTRANET

Full report p30

Foreshore protection p42

NZ LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE

NZ LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE

NZ LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE

VOL 53 • OCTOBER 2016 • $8.95

VOL 53 • SEPTEMBER 2016 • $8.95

VOL 53 • AUGUST 2016 • $8.95

Three councils share their stories p34

RAIN RADAR

RISK & INSURANCE Can councils work together? p20

NEXT GENERATION COUNCILS NZ LOCAL GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE VOL 53 • JULY 2016 • $8.95

Estimating the size of flood events p40

CHAIN REACTIONS

A SHORE THING The power of plants p26

MAGIC OR MADNESS? Christchurch City’s mega model p41

TECHNICAL BRIEFINGS Water sensitive design p34

Mayoral candidates share their views p14

THAT BILL ON THE ROAD

New to the market p14

The best road maintenance contract model for your council p32

WASTE ASSESSMENTS & SECTION 17A

TECHNICAL BRIEFINGS

The what and how of waste services p29

Pipe infrastructure renewals: Timaru District Council p41

WEL

hlan

ria C

Lian

What’s so hard about collaboration? p16

PRODUCTS & SERVICES

oug

Victo

ne D

Phil

John

l

AUCK

n Le

ne R

WEL

CHRI

itch

e Sw

Mark

T

Nico LG Sept 1609 v3.indd 1

STCH

Jo

LINGT

ON

URCH STCH

ie

WEL

arbri

la Yo

LINGT

ck

as hom

AUCK

AUCK

BEST 2016 LGNZ EXCELLENCE AWARDS p16

LINGT

WEL

CHRI

STCH

s drew

ON

Kerry Prendergast: Outstanding Contribution to Local Government

URCH

WEL

LINGT

3

7

7

SMART MOVES

Web & digital to the rescue p14

LAND

LAND

o

An

S implythe

ON

ung

arb hn Z

John

NEW ZEALAND’S CIVIL CONTRACTING INDUSTRY MAGAZINE

URCH

LAND

ster

Chlö

20/09/16 2:59 pm

LAND

CHRI

Minto

Hele

LG Oct 1610 v2.indd 1

ON

AUCK

alzie

Goff

Justi

LINGT

rone

6

5

2

Jo C

❍ ❍ ❍ ❍ ❍ ❍ ❍ ❍ ❍ ❍ ❍ ❍

4

1

DEMOCRACY &

Five local authorities to watch p24

ON 18/08/16 4:24 pm

OCTOBER 2016 $8.95

LG Aug 1608 v3 .indd 1

13/07/16 5:30 pm

NEW ZEALAND QUARRYING & MINING Volume 13 - No 5 | October - November 2016 | $8.95

Cat M Series Wheel Loaders Do more for you, delivering improved productivity and efficiency

LG July_1607_V3.indd 1

20/06/16 5:19 pm

water MAY 2015 | ISSUE 189

SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2016 l ISSUE 196

Questions of quality When pure turns poor Quality + quantity Water modelling future A view into the kaleidoscope

Hitting the ground running Ditch Witch New Zealand introduces Komptech innovation Recognising safety practice Road Metals’ award-winning H&S programme

INSIDE:

Covering AusIMM 2016

Contractor celebrates 40 years with a look back to October 1976 Heavy Haulage Conference 2016 – a report from Christchurch Milestone looming for Christchurch as SCIRT winds down Best road maintenance contract model – IPWEA presentation

Cover_Upfront.indd 1

Mining industry lows and highs INCORPORATING

Aggregate News

20/09/16 7:38 pm

VISIT OUR WEBSITE www.localgovernmentmag.co.nz

Q&M _AQA news 1610 v2.indd 1

Feeling the heat

Role of temperature in asphalt paving

20/09/16 2:26 pm

Water_September_October 1609 v2.indd 1

12/09/16 1:00 pm

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR e-NEWSLETTER

EDITORIAL ENQUIRIES

ADVERTISING ENQUIRIES

NZ Local Government Ruth Le Pla Email ruth@localgovernmentmag.co.nz Phone +64 21 266 3978

NZ Local Government and EnergyNZ Charles Fairbairn Email charles@contrafed.co.nz Phone +64 9 636 5724 Mob +64 21 411 890

Contractor, Q&M, EnergyNZ and Water Alan Titchall Email alan@contrafed.co.nz Phone +64 9 636 5712

Contractor and Q&M Charles Fairbairn Email charles@contrafed.co.nz Phone +64 9 636 5724 Mob +64 21 411 890