New $2m Large-Scale Environmental Fund Endorsed By ORC
Councillor and co-chair of the environmental delivery committee, Kate Wilson, welcomed the decision, saying the community had shown that large scale catchment wide approach was the most effective delivery model.
'It had been well supported through consultation and provided for intergenerational impact, collaboration and also aligns with organisational strategic direction to support environmental outcomes,' she says.
The delivery committee's other co-chair and Councillor, Lloyd McCall, says the ability for ORC to be able to support and enable community led environmental action at scale is an excellent opportunity.
'There is already significant investment that the community are contributing to environmental outcomes and to be able to support more of this to happen on the ground is vital to enhance what we have for future generations,' Mr McCall says.
At a full Council meeting in Dunedin yesterday, Councillors unanimously endorsed the proposal for staff to progress implementation of the prioritised funding model.
The $2 million per-year fund will initially be funded from Council reserves and comes into effect from 1 July 2025. The new fund is separate from the ORC's annual ECO Fund.
Manager Environmental Implementation, Libby Caldwell says on collaboration across the system, ORC will take a leadership role of the funding system, but local leadership and action will be driven by communities to achieve sustained environmental outcomes.
In considering ORC alignment to organisational strategy and strategic direction, Mrs Caldwell says that covers 'knowing that the right investment decisions are being made in the right place at the right time to support ORC's strategic directions and the goals set by Council'.
Through the annual plan process the decision was also made in the Council meeting yesterday to proceed with funding this programme of work.
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RNZ News
12 hours ago
- RNZ News
Southern councils reluctantly agree to jointly deliver water services
Clutha River Mata-Au. Photo: RNZ / Tess Brunton The Clutha District Council has reluctantly agreed to partner with other southern councils to deliver water services with councillors saying they feel backed into a corner. Councils have less than a month to submit their water service delivery plans to the Department of Internal Affairs. Four southern councils had been working towards a jointly owned, council-controlled organisation, but last month, the Waitaki District Council pulled out , leaving the others to work out if they should stick with the plan or strike out on their own. Earlier this week, the Central Otago and Gore district councils both voted to stay the course and continue with the Southern Water Done Well model. On Wednesday, Clutha District councillors met to consider if the updated figures for only three councils stacked up and they should stick with their earlier decision to adopt the Southern Water Done Well model. Analysis by Morrison Low Advisory, that was tabled at the extraordinary meeting, found that ratepayers across the three councils would collectively save approximately $392 million by 2054 through setting up the joint entity. This was $220 million less than the estimated savings if the Waitaki District Council remained in the partnership, but the analysis suggested the figures used conservative assumptions and more savings could be made if other councils joined in the future. The decision was not unanimous, with multiple councillors on both sides of the vote expressing their frustration and concerns. Clutha District Mayor Bryan Cadogan said he was gutted and furious, but the new entity was the only option they had to avoid government intervention as they faced rising debt, costs, rate rises above 20 percent and a looming deadline. It was the worst process that he had ever seen a government push through, he said. "Most councils walk out of this totally enfeebled. There's going to be some ghastly costs and ghastly decisions moving forward." But he urged councillors not to vote against the partnership, saying the council could not afford to go it alone and if it tried, the government would step in and councillors would not have a seat at the decision-making table. Clutha district Mayor Bryan Cadogan Photo: supplied Councillors had a moral and democratic responsibility to protect their ratepayers from having a complete stranger from Wellington intervene and call the shots for their district, he said. Councillor Dane Catherwood said they were being pushed into a corner, but he was worried about ratepayers facing separate rates and water bills and that it would be more expensive if the entity went ahead. Clutha Deputy Mayor Ken Payne said it felt like they only had one option, even if he did not like it. Councillor Gaynor Finch said she did not want to hand over the district's assets, but she thought this option was the only way to avoid government intervention. Councillor Brent Mackie said he resented the feeling their ratepayers were being threatened and their district was being bullied and pushed around. Councillor Jock Martin said he believed if the council backed its own staff and process, they could do a better, cheaper job. The analysis was peer reviewed by Concept Consulting and Infometrics, and considered by the Department of Internal Affairs, with all three noting that this model remained the best and most viable option for the three councils to deliver water services. Councillors also voted to agree that the Timaru District Council and Waitaki District Council might join the partnership and they were willing to explore future opportunities to collaborate with other southern councils. During the meeting, they were told that the Waitaki District Council, which has been hosting weekly workshops on its own water plan, had been advised by the Department of Internal Affairs that its plan had significant gaps. On that basis, the department staff told them a specialist would likely be sent in to take over decision-making and they were expected to get the council to rejoin the southern partnership. Councillor Alison Ludemann said no extra costs should fall on the councils already in the partnership if another council sought to buddy up and any request needed to be discussed by the councils. For Clutha ratepayers, the analysis found that a new joint water services entity would mean three waters debt and revenue no longer impacted the council's borrowing limits and the council would improve its debt to revenue ratio, allowing for an increase of approximately $8 million of additional borrowing capacity. The analysis also found, while this model was the best overall, there was a risk that some local control was eroded and some high value jobs might be lost in some districts as the work was centralised. It also said the benefits of the model would be derived over the long term and the transition to a regional price might increase charges for some customers. Southern Water Done Well chair and Central Otago District Mayor Tamah Alley said the entity would be designed to protect local communities and ensure fair, effective governance. "The model is regionally focused, community-driven, and ensures that decisions about water services remain in local hands," she said. Working together remained the best way for councils to achieve their shared goal to provide the best most efficient services for their communities today and into the future, she said. "We remain committed to collaboration and would welcome future conversations with any council interested in being part of a community-led, regional solution." The new water services entity was due to start operations by July 2027, covering 24 urban water supplies and 10 rural supplies. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Scoop
16 hours ago
- Scoop
Phase One Milestones In Shaping Our Future Programme Achieved
Press Release – Nelson City Council Council Chief Executive Nigel Philpott says the change will enable the organisation to improve the delivery of services and projects for its customers and community. Nelson City Council has unveiled a new organisational design as it moves into Phase 2 of Shaping Our Future, a five-year internal programme that will modernise how the organisation operates and ensure we deliver even better value for money for our community. Council's current five Group Manager roles will be disestablished and replaced with four new Executive Director roles: Executive Director Delivery: Leads integrated operational services and infrastructure delivery Executive Director People & Customer Experience: Leads strategic transformation, customer experience and people strategy. Executive Director Strategy & Planning: Leads strategy, asset management, and long-term planning. Executive Director Corporate Services: Leads centralised core corporate functions Council Chief Executive Nigel Philpott says the change will enable the organisation to improve the delivery of services and projects for its customers and community. 'This new structure will better integrate the various functions across Council, enhancing collaboration across services and moving us away from working in siloed groups into a 'one council' approach that puts the customer at the core of our business. 'We'll be better organised to focus on our long-term goals and have the breadth and depth of capabilities needed to provide good value for money for our community now and in the future, both at a strategic and operational level.' The various business units across Council will be reorganised to align with this new Directorate structure. Nigel says the changes aren't about downsizing the organisation but spending Council's people budget to better effect. 'We've got great staff doing a lot of good work, but as Council has grown into a complex organisation managing over $2.5 billion in assets, so have the expectations. 'These changes are about rising to those expectations and making it easier for staff to work more efficiently and collaboratively to better serve the community, and maximising value for money.' The new organisation design is one of the outcomes from Phase 1 of Shaping Our Future, a programme based on two years of data, analysis and feedback indicating a strong case for change. 'Through staff workshops; surveys; interviews with elected members and external stakeholders; and feedback from the 2024 City Revitalisation Summit; it became clear that the time is right for our Council to modernise so it can meet the changing needs of our community. We know there are things we do well and areas where we can significantly improve, and we now have a much better picture of what that will look like.' Entirely funded by an internal loan, which ensures the programme remains cost-neutral and has no impact on rates, another key outcome from Phase 1 of Shaping Our Future was a new Operating Model. ' The Operating Model is a blueprint that defines how our people, processes, technologies, and decision-making align with our strategic goals to deliver value for money, and it's what we used to develop our new organisation design,' Nigel says. The model was developed by the Operating Model workstream, one of seven staff-led workstreams tasked with reviewing aspects of the organisation. Creation of the model involved input from Council staff and key stakeholders. In March, 91 staff took part in workshops to explore how Council could work most effectively in the future, which helped to shape the model. 'The model will guide the way Council serves Nelson in the future and is what staff will refer to in Phase 2 when we start making tangible changes to the way we operate to create a more responsive, customer-focused organisation,' says Nigel. Other Phase 1 workstream highlights include: Service Portfolio: reviewed all of Council's services and explored interactive tools for using this data to inform future decision-making and how to get the best 'bang for the buck'. Purposeful Delivery: introduced a project prioritisation framework and began establishing a Programme Management Office (PMO) to better co-ordinate the work delivered across the organisation with a prime focus on value for money delivery. Customer & Community: mapped customer journeys to see where services could be made easier to access and tested these journeys with external focus groups. People: sourced a new Human Resource Information System (HRIS) to update Council's internal systems and significantly increase efficiency. Achievable Long Term Plan (LTP): revising Council's Long Term Plan process to ensure transparency, affordability and strategic alignment with community priorities. 'Shaping Our Future is about asking what's working, what's not working, and then making gradual, sustainable and meaningful improvements to our service,' says Nigel. 'We want to provide lasting value for our community now and in the years ahead.' What's next In July, the Transformation Management Office (TMO) workstream, which facilitates the Shaping Our Future programme, organised an Expo for Council staff to reflect on Phase 1 and look ahead to Phase 2. Nearly 200 staff attended. 'What we heard was clear: our staff are ready to tackle what's ahead and further develop the ways in which this programme will improve the way we work,' Nigel says. While Phase 1 was about information gathering and setting the future direction of the organisation, Phase 2 is all about how the organisation gets there. 'This next phase is about bringing the Operating Model to life and embedding it throughout the organisation,' says Nigel. 'Implementing the new organisation design will be a crucial first step, which will position us to make real changes that improve how we work and serve the public. 'Over time, people will see the difference: an achievable Long Term Plan that prioritises care of our existing infrastructure and services, the smart co-ordination of project delivery through a Programme Management Office, and, following a technology business case that will be put to Elected Members, more self-service options that make interacting with Council easier,' Nigel says. 'This programme is ultimately about ensuring Council does its part to help Nelson thrive —now and in the future.' Phase 2 of Shaping Our Future officially begins 25 August 2025.
NZ Herald
a day ago
- NZ Herald
The double tax hitting ratepayers in the pocket, another rate cut looms and concrete data shows hard times roll on
Why is it that local bodies do not receive a share of the GST spent in their area? Local government spends a lot of money providing the services to enable businesses to generate tax dollars. Why not return a portion of this to local government? At the very least, removing a tax on a tax by not charging GST on rates would help councils to keep rates down. Is there an explanation as to why this can't or won't happen? Steve Browne A: Thanks Steve, a couple of good questions there. I wrote on Sunday about the dire state of Auckland's economy. Perhaps your suggestion would offer a way forward. The idea of letting councils have a share of GST has been pitched before. In particular, the New Zealand Initiative (the economic think tank) has been a champion of the idea for several years. The New Zealand Initiative is a strong advocate for more devolved government, giving local councils more say in decision-making and funding them to do it. It has even highlighted the merits of the Swiss model of tax sharing. Switzerland operates as a confederation with three levels of government – federal, cantonal (state), and communal (local). The Government, the federal level, collects income and corporate taxes but is constitutionally required to share a portion with cantons and communes. Currently, cantons receive about 17% of direct federal tax revenue and they often pass some of this down to their communes. In a research paper published in 2019, the New Zealand Initiative's Bryce Wilkinson and Patrick Carvalho argued that local councils bear most of the new development costs, while tax revenue windfalls from the developments flow directly to central government in the form of increased income and GST collections. They advocate for central government to pay local councils for every new house completed within a specified period. 'The payments could be benchmarked on the goods and services tax (GST) charged on residential building (excluding land value), or be a fixed sum,' they said. 'Under the GST model, if each of the 9400 residential building consents issued in Auckland in 2015 resulted in construction, and each home had a build value of $200,000, Auckland ... Council would have netted $282 million.' The idea has gained some serious traction with the coalition Government, which has agreed in theory to look into some kind of GST sharing. As to your other question about paying GST on rates, well, it's a relevant one, but perhaps not for the reason you might have hoped. From what I can see, any suggestion that the Government would give up the GST on rates would likely see it returned to the council rather than to ratepayers directly. But the Government probably won't even go that far, given that it is desperate for revenue at the moment. It looks more like it will limit things to considering returning some of the tax collected on new residential builds to help with infrastructure costs. So, why not? I guess if I have a reservation about devolving power and tax revenue to local councils, it is that they haven't exactly covered themselves in glory when it comes to financial management in the past few decades. I've never had a great deal of faith in central Government to get things done, and if anything, I'm probably more sceptical about the standard of governance at a local level. Smaller councils in particular are vulnerable to the vagaries of low levels of participation in democracy (that's a nice way to say they sometimes elect weirdos and nut jobs). What happens if we divert tax funding to local councils for infrastructure, but they vote for an unrealistic blue-sky project that bankrupts them? I suspect the Government will still be expected to come to the rescue. I worry that New Zealand doesn't have the level of sophistication in local body politics that Switzerland does. These fears may be unfounded. I'm pretty sure the New Zealand Initiative would argue that the low standard of local government simply reflects the low level of influence it has in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps if we funded local government to do more of our governing, the standard would rise. It's probably a moot point, though. The answer to your question as to why this idea isn't taken more seriously is probably simply down to politics. If we can trust central government politicians, from all ends of the spectrum, on one thing, it's that they are not going to be keen to legislate away their own power. Reserve Bank to deliver verdict on economic recovery Next Wednesday, we'll get the first full Monetary Policy Statement from the Reserve Bank (RBNZ) we've had since May. In July – when the RBNZ hit pause on cuts – it was just the shorter Monetary Policy Review, which doesn't include a full set of forecasts. The market, and almost all the local economists, are picking that we'll get a 25-basis-point rate cut, taking the Official Cash Rate (OCR) to 3%. But a lot has changed since May, so most of the interest is likely to be in the new forecast rate track that the RBNZ produces. Evidence that the economic recovery stalled in the second quarter has been pretty strong. We've seen the BNZ/BusinessNZ Performance of Manufacturing and Performance of Services Index slip back into negative (contractionary) territory. Employment growth has stalled, particularly in the big cities, where unemployment is running much higher than the national average. BNZ head of research Stephen Toplis has taken an early look at what we might expect from the RBNZ next week. 'Our expectation is that the bank will print a rate track not dissimilar to what it printed back in May, namely with a decent chance of a cut to 2.75%,' Toplis said. 'We can see the argument for taking a more cautious approach, especially if the committee feels it does not want to push an incoming new governor into a corner.' 'Equally, an admission that even more work than a 2.75% low might be required is plausible. While 2.75% is our central forecast for the low, we think the odds of 2.5% are marginally higher than a 3% stall.' But Westpac chief economist Kelly Eckhold took a slightly more upbeat tone in his latest Economic Overview. Eckhold is still forecasting the RBNZ to pause again, after next Wednesday's cut, leaving the OCR at 3% for an extended period. 'The near-term economic outlook has weakened slightly since May,' he said. 'Uncertainty associated with the trade war, ongoing cost-of-living pressures and the still slow pass-through of past OCR cuts into household budgets have been weighing on activity.' But so far, the tariff damage to the global economy had not been as bad as expected. And while the pass-through of interest rate reductions had been gradual to date, they would provide 'a sizeable boost to households' disposable incomes and demand more generally over the next six to 12 months'. Here's hoping ... Hard times More evidence of the big slowdown in the second quarter came through on Tuesday with the release of the latest concrete production statistics. Concrete production is a pretty good barometer of the state of the construction sector, which we know has been struggling in the past few months. The news from Stats NZ was not good. In the June 2025 quarter, the actual volume of ready-mixed concrete produced was 891,909 cubic metres, down 10% compared with the June 2024 quarter. That is a big fall. While the completion of big projects such as Auckland's City Rail Link might have compounded the fall, it still likely represents a big slowdown in home building and commercial construction. If you want to visualise the concrete deficit (about 99,000 cubic metres), artificial intelligence (AI) tells me it would be enough to cover Eden Park's main rugby field to a depth of 14m. I'm not sure why Eden Park ... perhaps the AI thinks we should build a new waterfront stadium. But anyway, it's a lot of concrete to not get poured in just one quarter. Annual ready-mixed concrete volumes continued the downward trend which has persisted since volumes peaked at 4.78 million cubic metres in September 2022. Annual volumes of 3.70 million cubic metres in June were 23% below that peak, and the lowest since September 2014. Infometrics economist Matthew Allman noted that annual ready-mixed concrete volumes had continued on the downward trend that has persisted since volumes peaked at 4.78 million cubic metres in September 2022. Annual volumes of 3.70 million cubic metres in June were now 23% below that peak and the lowest since September 2014. The near-term outlook for construction activity remains soft, which will likely prevent a material change in the trend in concrete volumes over the next few quarters, Allman said. Infrastructure activity provides some upside risk for concrete volumes, with the Government focused on progressing major projects heading into the 2026 election. Activity is more likely to show through in 2026 as there currently seems to be a mismatch between intentions and activity in the infrastructure sector. More clues to come We'll see other high-frequency data on Friday, with new monthly numbers for electronic card spending, immigration and tourism (short-term visitors). All of these will be highly relevant to Auckland's economic recovery, given it is largely underpinned by population growth (driving the property sector) and the service sector. FYI, 'high frequency' just means the regular monthly numbers we get for second-tier economic data as opposed to the quarterly numbers we get for the biggies like GDP, inflation and unemployment. All of this stuff will be relevant to the Reserve Bank as it tries to get a handle on the extent of the slowdown. It will be fed into the RBNZ Nowcast, which is its version of the AI-driven, real-time GDP forecaster that has become popular (Massey University and Westpac have their own version). The Nowcast model has New Zealand's economy contracting again from mid to late June and it has been flatlining at about negative 0.3% ever since. It's not clear how much weight the RBNZ puts on this model, but at face value, it will only add to the case for further rate cuts this year. Liam Dann is business editor-at-large for the New Zealand Herald. He is a senior writer and columnist, and also presents and produces videos and podcasts. He joined the Herald in 2003. To sign up to hisweekly newsletter, click on your user profile at and select 'My newsletters'. For a step-by-step guide, click here. If you have a burning question about the quirks or intricacies of economics send it to or leave a message in the comments section.
