Shared council savings available to see

Wairoa District Council chief executive Fergus Power

The citizens of Hawke's Bay can now see how their five councils will work together to drive operational efficiencies and reduce costs to ratepayers.

Through the recent website launch of Hawke's Bay Local Authority Shared Services (HB LASS), people can view the internal process and shared purchasing power where councils aim to collectively achieve time and cost effectiveness.

With amalgamation not going ahead, it seems certain the five councils will use that model as a way to move the region forward.

HB LASS was established in 2012 to investigate, develop and deliver shared services.

"This new website will give Hawke's Bay people more information about what their councils are doing to share services and save on costs," said HB LASS chairman Craig Waterhouse.

"For insurance, we partnered with Manawatu, Whanganui, Bay of Plenty and some South Island councils to achieve more than $3million worth of savings for the 25 councils involved."

Wairoa District Council chief executive Fergus Power said he supported the economy of scale achieved by HB LASS.

"Through our efforts, Hawke's Bay saved $930,000 for the 2015/16 year insurance programme, while the GIS shared service also saved $170,000 in joint software purchasing."

His regional council counterpart, Liz Lambert, is also a project advocate.

"We're confident we can deliver more savings through joint procurement and by aligning contracting programmes for shared services across the region," she said. "This is good for our region and our ratepayers."

HB LASS said in a release it was established to investigate, develop and deliver shared services, where and when that could be done more effectively for any combination of some or all of the shareholding councils.

Insurance, information services, GIS and fuel are currently shared services.

The company is owned by the Central Hawke's Bay District Council, the Hastings District Council, the Napier City Council, The Wairoa District Council and the Hawke's Bay Regional Council.

Each council CEO is a director of the company.

According to the regional council the driver behind it has so far been to improve service levels, lower costs, improve efficiency and increase value through innovation for Hawke's Bay ratepayers.

For more information, visit hblass.nz.