Robin Hambleton: Super Auckland risks ending up with a weak mayor

Government reform is in the Auckland air. For good or ill it is highly likely that the governance of this marvellous, multicultural metropolis will have been transformed within the next two years.

First, the good news. The Royal Commission on Auckland Governance carried out a world-class study of the challenges facing the entire city region, an insightful analysis that will serve New Zealand well for many years.

The commission received over 3500 written submissions and commissioned numerous research reports. In the light of the evidence assembled the commission has constructed a reasoned argument leading to 169 recommendations.

An important strength of the report is that, on the whole, the recommendations flow from detailed consideration of the evidence. Moreover, this evidence is documented in a well-integrated report. This runs, if you sum together all four volumes, to over 1800 pages.

I should declare an interest. I was invited to write a research paper for the royal commission on the leadership challenges facing Auckland. In my paper Civic Leadership ... an International Perspective published by the commission in its Volume 4, I suggest that it is imperative for Auckland to develop multi-level civic leadership.

I outlined ways in which this can be accomplished and put forward ideas on how to develop local leaders both inside and outside government.

The commission accepted much, but not all, of my advice. Chapter 19 of their report advocates a range of sensible measures to nourish and enhance the development of civic leadership in the city region.

Now, the bad news. The proposals set out by the commission, while creative in many respects, could well fail to resolve the two fundamental problems they identify at the outset of their report. Worse than that, the Government may be in danger of compounding the errors.

Problem one as defined by the commission is that "regional governance is weak and fragmented".

The existing authorities were seen as "lacking the collective purpose, constitutional ability and momentum to address issues effectively for the overall good of Auckland".

Viewed from an international perspective, this is the classic metropolitan challenge.

It is often the case that the fragmentation of power in a big city means that nobody has the authority to lead.

I suggested that Auckland needed a strong, directly elected mayor - like, for example, the Mayor of London. Strong mayors have the formal authority (or constitutional ability) to take on vested interests and exercise decisive civic leadership.

In metropolitan governments across the world we find both "strong" and "weak" mayors - they may have more authority (strong mayor) or less authority (weak mayor).

The established mayoral system in New Zealand local government follows the weak mayor model.

In a strong mayor model, the mayor has the power to make crucial decisions. The role of the council is to hold the mayor to account and, depending on the specific model, to make more detailed decisions.

In the weak mayor model it is the council, not the mayor, which holds the decision-making cards.

If policy remains unchanged, Auckland is on course to create a featherweight mayor.

Toronto is a city that has already introduced reforms very like those proposed by the Government for Auckland, merging together several smaller municipalities and introducing a weak mayor model of leadership.

The result is rampant parochialism because the mayor lacks the formal authority to resolve disputes.

Parallel reforms in London were more successful. The Greater London Authority, created in 2000, is led by a strong, directly elected mayor. The governance design provides for bold, outgoing leadership by the mayor.

For example, with the congestion charge, because he had the formal authority to lead, Mayor Ken Livingstone was able to dismiss the views of vested interests, impose the tax, transform the environment of the central area of the city, and make spectacular improvements to public transport.

Cities from across the world now queue up to find out how the British strong mayor model works.

Problem two as identified by the commission is that community engagement in Auckland is poor.The commission decided to do away with the lower tier of local government in Auckland. It proposed the abolition of the seven territorial authorities and the introduction of six local councils.

It is important to recognise that the commission did not propose a lower tier of government - in their model, the local councils would not have tax-raising powers. Notwithstanding the interesting ideas the commission puts forward for shared governance between the Auckland Council and the local councils, the proposals provided for a significant centralisation of power in a new, mega-unitary authority.

It is difficult to escape the conclusion that the royal commission proposals could lead to an erosion of local democracy. The creation of a very big authority, with a relatively small number of councillors, could well widen the gap between citizens and those in positions of power.

It gets worse. The Government has decided that even the modest local council proposal put forward by the commission should be dropped.

Instead, the Government proposes 20 to 30 local boards.

The Government paper Making Auckland Greater provides only a sketch of the powers to be exercised by these boards but the text has drawn forth scathing criticism, and not just from citizens in Auckland.

Helene Ritchie, long-serving councillor on Wellington City Council, told me that the boards would be "more impotent than the local Plunket".

"At least the Plunkets can raise funds by selling cakes," she said.

I have suggested the Government should slow down the change process so issues relating to civic leadership and community empowerment can be thought through more carefully.

Holding elections for the new Auckland Council in, say, March 2011 would give everyone more time to reach a better conclusion. And the reforms would still be implemented before the next general election.

The choice for the Government is clear. Do they want the major decisions on Auckland governance to be right or rushed?

* Robin Hambleton is professor of city leadership at the University of the West of England and director of Urban Answers.