Local Board Survey: Howick

The New Zealand Herald has surveyed the 21 local boards to see how they are getting on after six months of the Super City.

The Herald asked the chairs of the local boards six questions and to score the first four questions out of 10. Not all boards gave a score.

Here are the responses from Michael Williams, chairman of the Howick board.

Note: There were no scores provided by Michael Williams. His response is as follows:

The Howick Local Board has benefited from the work carried out by the combined Howick, Pakuranga and Botany Community Boards before the election to combine planning documents to form the basis of a new Howick Aspirational Plan.

The Board has been meeting twice a week in workshops and community forum sessions to confirm the community's aspirations. This has put Howick on the front foot in its Local Board Plan preparation and its response to the Auckland Plan.

The Board, made up of 6 C&R and 3 independent members, has operated well as a team of nine, allocating significant responsibilities to all members. This has made it easier for the Board to focus on its extensive planning agenda.

The main difficulty the board has experienced is getting resources. The Auckland Council has been designed on a centralist basis and theoretically resources are available to be supplied to the board from the centre.

Unfortunately, our experience has been that these resources are difficult to access. We have had a chronic shortage of staff in the planning, communications, community engagement, project management and finance areas. As a result the board has very little understanding of what is in its own budget, has had difficulty communicating effectively with the public and the media and has trouble negotiating for the provision of support.

We have been given temporary resources in some of these areas but the Mayor and CEO are reluctant to engage in discussions around improving resourcing. An example of this is the refusal of the organisation to provide independent advice to Local Boards to assist in negotiating regulatory delegations with the Governing Body.

The Howick Local Board, however, is pressing on regardless and is making good progress in making things happen.

The Auckland Council is an organisation of some 7,000 employees and all of these employees have a different understanding as to how the so called co-governance model should work. Staff tend to view themselves as accountable to the Governing Body rather than to Local Boards, regardless of whether their activities are within the scope of governance of the Local Boards.

The Transport CCO has performed very well. An early decision was made to appoint liaison people and these have done a very good job at working collaboratively with the boards. The provision of Water has been a CCO function for some time and there really is little need for engagement. The Howick Local Board is still waiting for the Property CCO to engage in respect of the new Ormiston/Flat Bush Town Centre.

It is astounding the number of relationships that each board needs to cultivate within the organisation in order to do its job. Howick is creating relationships and linkages through workshop sessions. The organisation has been sceptical of the need for this direct engagement and has organised cluster meetings, initially well attended but now failing to attract members, which have consisted of one-way briefings on a range of topics.

The Howick Local Board has employed a unique process of community engagement through topic based forum sessions to discuss activity areas such as Community Safety, Environment, Heritage, Business, Art & Culture and Ethnic Affairs. These have been well received by participants and have assisted the board in prioritising community aspirations. In my opinion, yes, the Howick Local Board is living up to the promise of empowering local communities, in spite of the resourcing difficulties.

The number one improvement that needs to be made is the provision of resourcing to allow boards to conduct their core business.

The Board Chairs Committee, which meets monthly, has been one of the success stories of the new model. The Board Chairs, whether left of right, have found that they have very few differences of opinion and the group is gaining strength.

The Mayoral Forum consisting of the Mayor and Chairs, meeting quarterly, has been less effective, with the Mayor taking the approach of batting away Board Chairs' concerns with the standard "we'll do better next time" or "staff are doing their best under trying circumstances" answers.

Howick is the largest of the Local Boards, having a population slightly less than Hamilton. It is my opinion that 21 Local Boards is too many. Being of the size they are, key staff and resources have to be shared and the Governing Body has difficulty engaging with 21 Boards. A move of the Governing Body to suggest representation of clusters of boards (North South West and Central) was very unpopular among boards. The Governing Body seems to have delegated its relationship with Local Boards to staff which produces perverse results.

All in all it has to be said that bringing together 7 organisations and 7,000 people is a difficult and complex task. The priority of the organisation has been to seamlessly transition public services and I would like to think that the organisation will learn how to better service Local Boards in its second stage. I am confident that the 149 Local Board Members will rise to the challenge and take Local Boards to where they need to be regardless of the challenges. Certainly the Howick Local Board will not let anything stand in the way of achieving the community's aspirations.