Unelected directors to have huge local control

Unelected directors will be responsible for a catalogue of decisions affecting local communities under the Auckland Super City.

The agency designing the Super City yesterday released a blueprint for local control of neighbourhoods, which concentrates power in the hands of the Super Auckland Council and council-controlled organisations (CCOs), which will be run by unelected directors along business lines.

The largest of these CCOs, Auckland Transport, will be responsible for everything from major arterial roads to the location of bus stops.

Auckland Transport can choose to delegate local issues such as bus stops and speed reductions, but is not obliged to do so or listen to communities.

The Auckland Transition Agency said it was proposing to allocate significant responsibility to the 19 local boards, including roles in community halls, swimming pools, libraries, events, social housing, graffiti and rubbish removal.

But because most of these things are also of a regional nature, the Auckland Council, CCOs and bureaucrats retain control. For example, there is nothing to stop a repeat of Auckland City Council imposing a waste management system on Waiheke Island against the wishes of the community.

The discussion paper, open for feedback until March 26, only allocates non-regulatory functions to local boards. The delegation of regulatory functions, such as the location of brothels and liquor ban areas, will be done by the Auckland Council after the Super City comes into being on November 1.

The agency's local government adviser, Grant Taylor, said the local boards were intended to have a significant and wide-ranging role and the budget to deliver local services. For many people, the boards would be the face of local government, he said.

But critics, including the Employers and Manufacturers Association (Northern), blasted the agency for a lack of detail about the roles and functions of local boards.

One of the biggest concerns was how the CCOs would work with the boards and the absence of a dispute resolution process - even though the Government has provided such a process between the Auckland Council and local boards.

Western Bays community board chairman Bruce Kilmister said the paper was supposed to be a model for Auckland's future but was vastly disappointing for local people at local level.

"The local boards will have all of the responsibility to engage with the public, in other words, take all the flak, but no ability to affect decision-making other than the power to recommend at the whim of the Auckland Council or the CCOs."