Emma Davies and Elizabeth Rowe: Super City's social well-being in danger

Maori and Pacific Island peoples fare poorly on a wide range of social indicators. Photo / Glenn Jeffrey

While most of the debate about the future of Auckland has focused on local representation, we are at risk of forgetting an equally important debate - what is local government for?

Of course, urban planning, transport and water must be high on the list in answering that question.

However, another core function of our democratically elected authority is the social well-being of the people who elect it.

We risk losing sight of the fact that the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance's recommendation for the number of councils is not the only idea abandoned in the Government's response.

The royal commission concluded: "Central and local government's annual social well-being spend is in the vicinity of $12 billion in the Auckland region. It is critical that these resources are applied effectively to achieve the best outcomes.

"Accordingly, Auckland needs a governance structure for social well-being that enables local and central government to share decision-making and accountability for improving the effectiveness of resources spent and addressing the critical social issues in Auckland."

Auckland does poorly on many health and social indicators. What is most striking about well-being in Auckland is the spatial distribution of advantage and disadvantage. We have some of the richest and poorest neighbourhoods in the country.

Some ethnic communities are also consistently worse off, with Maori and Pacific Island peoples faring poorly on a wide range of indicators.

There are many families in Auckland who have the resources, both within the family and in their neighbourhood, to give their children the best start in life.

But there are also many children whose parents do not have adequate incomes, whose houses are overcrowded, whose access to health and education services is limited, and whose ability to improve their own lives and that of their children is constrained by lack of access to employment and to recreational facilities. Their social services are poorly resourced and patchy.

This picture is set to worsen as the world recession increases demand on social services and shrinks government and private sector resourcing of these essential services.

Deprived neighbourhoods are unlikely to have sufficient resources to meet their challenges. For example, people are concerned about gangs and other antisocial behaviour.

Although the solutions to changing much of this behaviour in the next generation lie in the first few years of life, there is more that can also be done in the short term.

Young people play, live, work, seek services and misbehave in different localities. But they are all within the bounds of Auckland, and short-term solutions need to gather up all these dimensions regionally rather than locally.

The solutions to youth crime lie closer to home and work places than to the scene of many of the offences.

Capable non-government organisations working with young people, including culturally specific projects, can be the best way for marginalised young people to move confidently into mainstream training or work, but they seldom have sufficient connections with the business sector to source enough employment.

There is huge potential in the new Super City to connect central government policies with local realities to deal with some of the core social issues in the region.

When local authority powers to regulate land use, make provision for affordable housing, determine public transport, provide and place facilities, and proactively engage with diverse communities are combined with central government's powers to decide on the distribution of social services such as health, education, police and child and family support services, a powerful engine for change can be built. The danger is that the new structure could sideline social issues.

It could turn council activity away from poor marginalised people and work to make a small minority prosper.

Auckland could develop a thriving waterfront but a very unpleasant - even dangerous - backyard.

Alternatively, Auckland could face social development head-on. The new structure will be big enough to redistribute resources to achieve Auckland's social goals.

The core decision-making body could include all those who are accountable for public expenditure to promote good social outcomes.

It could constructively engage with diverse communities to ensure that services designed to meet the needs of particular communities actually do.

It could also have sufficient research and social mapping capability to help increase the effectiveness of social, health, education and justice expenditure in Auckland and make the results publicly visible.

That is why the royal commission proposed a Social Issues Board. Having rejected this proposal, the Government has proposed a weaker Social Issues Forum chaired by the Minister of Social Development, and comprising the Auckland Council Mayor, the head of relevant Auckland Council committees and representation from local boards. There is no mention of how the central government agencies (Ministry of Health, Justice, Social Development and Education; Commissioner for Police, Housing New Zealand) will be actively involved, yet they are the central government agencies who spend most of the money on social issues.

The social dimension of the city's planning is also missing from the listed activities of the Transition Board or the key topics on the Government's Auckland website.

Local representatives meeting the Social Development Minister may be a useful step to more co-ordinated action between central and local government. The proof will be whether this body will be set up to hear Aucklanders' diverse voices.

What matters now is that we have a thorough debate about how the Super City can genuinely contribute to social development - before the city's structures are established and it is too late.

* Dr Emma Davies and Elizabeth Rowe are at the Institute of Public Policy at AUT.