Super City savings claim smoke and mirrors - councillor

Local Government Minister Rodney Hide has been accused of playing "smoke and mirrors" by claiming that the agency designing Auckland's Super City has found savings worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Waitakere deputy mayor Penny Hulse said the Auckland Transition Agency had listed money shaved from draft councils' budgets before the final budgets were approved.

"Those are not savings because the money was never there in the first place," she said.

Many of the so-called savings were for proposed upgrades of council building, information technology and the purchase of land.

Penny Hulse said Auckland City and Manukau councils had decided not to go ahead with upgrades to their buildings with the Super City on the horizon, and had excluded the figures from the final budgets.

Last night, Mr Hide said there were no smoke and mirrors. The agency had gone through the 10-year plans for the region's eight councils and found savings totalling hundreds of millions of dollars.

"These were things that had to go to the agency and were sent back to the councils," he said.

Mr Hide acknowledged that some of the "savings" were deferrals and would proceed under the Super City council.

Penny Hulse also said there was "absolute silence" about the set-up costs of the new council, including the multimillion-dollar cost of amalgamating the information technology systems of the councils.

Mr Hide said the agency was working on a set-up budget for approval by Finance Minister Bill English and himself. Once that happened, it would be made public.