O'Sullivan: Ginger group running cold

By FRAN O'SULLIVAN

Competitive Auckland's driving forces are starting to find out what happens when the hunter becomes the quarry.

The private-sector ginger group's decision to go cap in hand for a $300,000 Government handout to stay in business - instead of simply winding itself up as originally planned - has made it a prime candidate for tough questions over its own accountabilities.

Competitive Auckland has won a place at the discussion table alongside local government officials working to form a new Auckland Regional Economic Development Strategy by next May.

The group is also represented on the strategic leadership - or steering - group led by Auckland businessman Peter Menzies.

But unlike the regional officials, the ginger group representatives have no clear responsibilities for achieving the deliverables.

That bugs the bureaucrats.

There have been also been murmurings aplenty in local government circles over why Competitive Auckland is competing for scarce funds at the public trough.

But not all the behind-scenes criticism is coming from the regional officials, whose slow pace at forging change has itself come under Competitive Auckland's microscope.

Some of the new members who will take their place on Competitive Auckland's expanded board of trustees have been concerned enough to form their own informal ginger group to get some focus into the organisation.

Led by Auckland businessman-turned-academic David Irving, Competitive Auckland was set up as a finite project with expected outputs.

By June this year, it had charted strategies to overcome Auckland's huge growth slippage against the standards achieved by other regional cities such as Sydney and Melbourne.

Credible reports have been produced by a raft of advisers led by Boston Consulting Group. Hot sectors have been identified. Interesting marketing ideas like branding Auckland "Innovation Harbour" have been nutted out. There has also been a series of invited-guest briefings with the usual list of Auckland's good and the great.

But instead of tossing the implementation phase to local organisations with the people resources and budgets to do so, Competitive Auckland has fallen into that well-known New Zealand trap: perpetuating the project group instead of getting into the hard graft of implementing change.

There is also disharmony over the way crucial decisions over Competitive Auckland's structure are evolving. Feathers were ruffled by the way some founding trustees - such as Auckland Regional Chamber of Commerce chief executive Michael Barnett - suddenly found themselves pushed to the outer in a suggested restructuring.

Barnett's chamber had pledged cash for Competitive Auckland to get the project completed. But Barnett - along with some other original board members - are concerned that their roles will be relegated to mere advisers. On Friday, denials were running thick that an inner sanctum was planned.

Views vary on the internal politics, but the growth pains are real.

Competitive Auckland was the brainchild of property developer Richard Didsbury of Kiwi Income Property Trust. He pulled together a bunch of old Turks - like current chairman Irving, a former chief executive of Heinz Wattie - and some of Auckland's movers and shakers.

In short order others were brought into the frame: Barnett, Employers and Manufacturers Association (Northern) chief executive Alasdair Thompson,, University of Auckland Developments chief executive Bridget Wickham, Boston Consulting Group's Rick Boven, property developer David McConnell, Jump Capital's Bryan Mogridge, Enterprise North Shore's Richard Munro and IT entrepreneur Keith Phillips.

The group is now being expanded to include new trustees - not all of whom are completely convinced that a rationale or focus exists for Competitive Auckland's continuance.

Former ASB Bank managing director Ralph Norris, Herald editor-in-chief Gavin Ellis and Auckland University vice-chancellor John Hood have formed a loose ginger group to try to get some urgent focus at this week's trustees meeting.

Norris' main concern is that Competitive Auckland does not become just another "gabfest" and that it is refocused to remove "fuzziness".

But the major difficulty Competitive Auckland has to address is that by seeking Government funds it will become "duchessed".

Its monthly staffing budget of $56,000 for six staff is seen by local officials as excessive for a group that does not have strong accountabilities.

The last briefing I attended - a cosy lunch in Competitive Auckland's new headquarters - illustrated why a group which started with admirable intentions now faces criticism.

Irving was distressed that journalists who had attended an earlier briefing had focused their reports on the fact that the private sector-led organisation was coveting Government cash.

The reporters were bang on. There had been no new developments since the group's reports were finalised and published a couple of months back.

Irving's team again laid out their major project ideas to galvanise Auckland. But even Innovation Harbour - a stroke of Phillips' marketing genius - had no meat on the bones.

From where I sat, the presentation looked like nothing more than mere PR puffery designed to grab a few swift headlines at a time Government funds were being sought.

Key questions were ducked over whether the project team had the skills to drive Competitive Auckland to its next obvious but unstated phase - to be the basis of an industrial development agency or economic development agency.

Irving repeatedly stated the group did not want to have the prime accountabilities but act as a facilitator. Which is a great pity.

What Auckland urgently needs right now is an agency with firm accountabilities to drive new investment.

If this week's meeting achieves that refocus, Competitive Auckland will have a rationale for existing.

But it should not seek Government funds without delivering real results.