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NZ Herald
15-07-2025
- Politics
- NZ Herald
Bay of Plenty councils: Eastern Bay mayors hit out against amalgamation talks
At a recent Bay of Plenty Mayoral Forum, Drysdale said communities were crying out for things to be delivered more efficiently and effectively. He said there were seven councils represented around the forum table, which meant seven times the overhead. 'We can wait five years and have the Government do it for us or we can be proactive and say, let's look at it.' Drysdale will also be speaking to a remit put to this week's Local Government New Zealand conference by Tauranga City Council for a review of local government arrangements to achieve better balance. The remit was supported by LGNZ's Metro Sector councils. Whakatāne Mayor Victor Luca said he could find no evidence that amalgamation of councils would result in lower rates. He cited two academic studies published in the past three years that pointed against any efficiencies being achieved by amalgamation. A 2022 report called Does Size Matter, from independent Crown organisation the Infrastructure Commission, found little evidence of cost efficiencies from larger local governments. The report looked at whether council size and structure affected road maintenance, building consents and council overhead costs. Tauranga mayor Mahé Drysdale at a Tauranga City Council meeting. Photo / David Hall 'Our analysis suggests that population size neither decreases nor increases the cost to provide these three services,' the report stated. Luca also referenced a 2024 economic paper by University of Otago professor Tom Stannard and TDB Advisory's Philip Barry about scale efficiency gains in electricity distribution. The paper looked at public and private organisations and found that potential gains from scale alone, without considering population density, were very limited. 'The only way that reducing the number of slices in a pie can result in any benefit is if the pie also shrinks,' Luca said. 'I'm actually quite annoyed that Drysdale makes the argument that everybody trots out without evidence. The real evidence is there, and he completely ignores it.' Ōpōtiki Mayor David Moore, Kawerau Mayor Faylene Tunui and Whakatāne Mayor Victor Luca are in agreement that amalgamation with other Bay of Plenty councils is not in the best interests of the Eastern Bay. Photo / Supplied He felt Whakatāne district would be the loser in any amalgamation arrangement with the wider Bay of Plenty. 'We represent 16% of the population of the Bay of Plenty, and you only have to look at how we fared in receiving funding through the Regional Transport Committee. We only got 1% of the budget request allocated to us.' He felt there were efficiencies that could be made through the councils working more closely together. 'For example, we're all using different enterprise software. That is something that could easily be fixed without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.' Ōpōtiki Mayor David Moore said he felt Drysdale should be talking to his community about how they felt before he started talking about amalgamating councils. Whakatāne would be the loser in a Bay of Plenty council amalgamation, Mayor Victor Luca says. Photo / Andrew Warner 'The first thing you learn in local government is you need to talk to your community first, before we make plans.' Moore was doubtful that amalgamation would create efficiencies, pointing out a number of failures of central government in providing police, education and health services to the region. 'That day [of the mayoral forum] we had a presentation showing we are 1700 doctors short in New Zealand. 'We've got a net increase in police of less than 20.' He also referenced the recent reduction in gynaecological and obstetrics services that sees pregnant women having to be rushed to Tauranga for emergencies, and Ōpōtiki College having issues with black mould in classrooms last year. He said there had been a great deal of work done recently on possible funding solutions for councils. 'For example, the GST content of rates that gets forwarded to central. A tax on a tax, some say. 'There is no resistance to working smarter and sharing services wherever possible, but scale does not always mean saving for the community - something to think about on your next trip to the supermarket or when paying your latest power or insurance bills. 'The same out of control costs have hit councils too, which does nothing to help keeping costs down.' Kawerau Mayor Faylene Tunui. Kawerau Mayor Faylene Tunui said her community was against amalgamation. 'Mayor Drysdale can speak for Tauranga, but we know our communities are firmly rooted in the Eastern Bay of Plenty and that's where our people want their representation to be. 'Our three councils are busy implementing our joint spatial plan and joint economic development plan. That's our priority, not theoretical amalgamation discussions,' Tunui said. What other Bay mayors say Western Bay of Plenty Mayor James Denyer previously told Local Democracy Reporting he did not believe his community supported amalgamating with Tauranga. Rotorua Mayor Tania Tapsell said councils should not be afraid of change but 'negative experiences' from health and polytechnic mergers made communities wary. Bay of Plenty Regional Council chairman Doug Leeder said work needed to be done to understand where and how services were best delivered - nationally, regionally and locally - to inform the long-running debate. - Additional reporting by Alisha Evans - LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
Scoop
01-05-2025
- Business
- Scoop
Over Budget And Late: Ōpōtiki's Most Difficult Audit To Date
The cost to ratepayers of having the annual report and other documents audited, both in auditor's fees and in staff time, was the subject of complaint from councillors at an Ōpōtiki District Council meeting on Tuesday. The council adopted its Annual Report for the financial year ended June 30, 2024 this week, four months after the due date. The report was due to be adopted by the end of last year but due to flow on effects of the late adoption of the Long-term Plan 2024-2025 and a difficult audit process, the council is in breach of legislation by not adopting it by the deadline. It will also incur extra auditing costs due to the longer than anticipated auditing process. A report by council management to Tuesday's meeting said the audit process had been one of the most challenging that Ōpōtiki District Council staff had experienced, to date. 'Long-serving staff members, who have been through multiple audits over many years, have expressed that this particular audit was the most difficult they have encountered,' the report said. 'Further investigation needs to be carried out to determine what key factors are contributing to this cost increase and what improvements can be made by council staff and Audit New Zealand to reduce the audit inefficiencies that are occurring.' While it is not yet known how much the audit process will cost, Audit New Zealand had previously quoted a fee of $231,429 including GST to complete the Annual Report audit, which was estimated to involve 975 hours work. This year's audit had taken more than 1630 hours. Councillor Tom Brooks suggested writing to the appropriate Government minister about the prohibitive costs of the auditing process. "It's between 1 and 2 percent of rates and the ratepayers of this community can't afford this sort of money.' He also felt auditing both the long-term plan and the annual plan, which is based on the long-term plan was 'doubling up' of work. Mayor David Moore agreed with Mr Brooks and said he also hoped to align with neighbouring councils and Local Government New Zealand to bring the matter to government. He would be raising the issue at the next Bay of Plenty Mayoral Forum. 'One voice is not enough. The more the better,' he said. Chief executive Stace Lewer said he had arranged a meeting with Audit New Zealand and the Office of the Auditor General to discuss how the process could be done more efficiently. He said audits played an important role in assuring communities that councils were delivering on what they set out to. 'I think it's a good opportunity to take a step back and review if there is an easier way to get the result that we want to without costing the community and staff time,' he said. He felt auditors could provide councils with better information about the information they needed rather than 'catching them out' with unexpected information requests. Audit New Zealand's David Walker said he understood the impact the auditing process had on smaller councils. He said a lot of what auditors did was driven through the Auditor General Standards which were what would need to be looked at if the process was to be changed. The audit report included two qualifications, identifying significant issues with performance measures relating to the time it took to resolve sewerage overflows and customer service requests relating to roads and footpaths. Mr Walker said changes in both contractors and internal staff from previous years had made the auditing process more difficult. 'They had obviously adopted their own way of doing things and we didn't have access to the supporting documentation. That led to us not being able to test and confirm the response times which led to the qualification,' Mr Walker said. He recommended putting better internal quality assurance processes in place and suggested looking at how other councils did these. The council achieved 50 of the 74 non-financial targets it had set for the year in its 2021-2031 Long-term Plan.
