A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
Opinion
This newspaper gives its full backing to the call by councillor Tony Robinson for Gisborne District Council to conduct as many discussions as possible in forums that are open to the public — while noting that this should not even be up for debate.
Contrary to a staff response thatthe Chief Ombudsman had “kind of just put it out there” regarding his expectations for increased transparency and accountability in the way councils use workshops, Peter Boshier and his office have made it clear that all councils are on watch, and what his expectations are. These are set out in his findings released in October following an investigation of the practices of eight councils, not including GDC — with the key expectation being that workshops should be open to the public by default, unless it is reasonable to close a workshop on a case-by-case basis.
The stated view that GDC has a “pretty good process of workshops” belies the fact they have excluded the public, by not notifying them — apart from the odd one where people with a vested interest were invited. (An example cited of that was from 2015.)
It seems this will be rectified, with the suggestion that workshops be scheduled in the governance work plan, meaning they are public — unless there is a reason to exclude the public.
That the council “only needed to release one workshop” when The Gisborne Herald requested minutes from the 18 workshops held this term was given as evidence of good process — “because everything else that was discussed at those workshops was now in the public forum by way of reports, and you made the decisions”.
This prompted Cr Robinson to add to his earlier point, saying the public should know “how robust our debating processes are . . . (especially) later on when we cop it for our decision-making”. And that is central to The Herald’s view; the real debate over many issues has been happening in workshops, and the public then get served up majority consensus, limited discussion and maybe a few statements for political purposes.
A paper reviewing workshops early next year needs to be clear on the Ombudsman’s expectations, and how they will be met. There is also urgency here, as the council will be working towards a three-year plan that it has signalled will involve gut-churning maximum average rates rises of 11.4 percent. It needs to be looking at every way possible to bring that back to something more affordable, and to be seen to be doing this.
As stated by a spokesperson for the office of the Ombudsman in our report yesterday, “councils should be aware the Chief Ombudsman will be monitoring the situation and he will be guided by his expectations should a complaint arise about any council’s actions”.
