Social policy downgraded in Super City researchers

Planners for Auckland's new Super City will be urged today to lift social policy into a central role instead of burying it "underneath swimming pools".

AUT researchers Emma Davies and David Wilson say social development should be a stand-alone function in the new Super City structure on the same level as economic development and environmental strategy.

But Dr Davies said a discussion paper published by the Auckland Transition Agency this month listed social policy as "a dot point sitting underneath swimming pools" in the job description of a proposed third-tier manager of community and cultural strategy.

"Community development is a subset of social policy," she said.

"Social policy is talking about using your core business, such as resource consents, matched up with national policy, to make that [social development] happen on the ground."

About 350 people from community and Government agencies are expected at a conference organised by North Shore City Council and community groups today to start a public debate on the Super City council's role in social policy.

National Party ministers have already squashed an attempt by Local Government Minister Rodney Hide to restrict all local bodies to "roads, rates and rubbish".

Instead, the law creating the new Auckland Council retains the Labour Government's 2002 Local Government Act wording that the purposes of the council and its local boards will be to enable democratic decision-making and promote "the social, economic, environmental and cultural wellbeing" of communities.

Ministers have also approved an "Auckland Social Policy Forum".

But a 150-page AUT review of the plans, to be presented today by Dr Davies and Mr Wilson, says a "lack of emphasis on strategic thinking about social development" in the Transition Agency plan is a serious omission.

Mr Wilson, who helped initiate ideas for the Super City as a member of the business-backed "Metro Project" in 2005-06, said the planners had picked up the project's ideas for economic development but ignored its proposals for "community investment".

"If you want economic development, you can't have communities that are largely unskilled and unable to help the economy," he said. "

Auckland Mayor John Banks, in a "vision" statement prepared for the conference, said the Super City "provides an unprecedented opportunity to address issues of inequity and poverty".

Manukau Mayor Len Brown, who is challenging Mr Banks for the Super City mayoralty, said: "Auckland cannot be great if parts of our region continue to struggle."

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