Napier mayor acknowledges ‘challenging time’ as city receives lowest CouncilMARK grade in Hawke’s Bay

The 2022-25 Napier City Council after being sworn in at the War Memorial Centre last year.

Napier City Council has received a B grade in its 2022 Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) CouncilMARK assessment report; the lowest rating of all the Hawke’s Bay councils that took part in the independent reviews.

Central Hawke’s Bay District Council came out on top with an AA rating, while Hastings received an A and Wairoa received a BB, the second-lowest. Hawke’s Bay Regional Council did not participate.

Napier Mayor Kirsten Wise acknowledged the rating was down from a previous A rating in 2017, and admitted it had been a challenging time for the city council over the past two years.

“With the benefit of hindsight, we could have done a better job of managing some areas,” Wise said in a statement.

Councils are independently assessed on how they deal with financial decision-making and transparency, how they deliver services and asset management, and their communication and engagement with the public and businesses.

According to LGNZ, a B rating means areas of improvement had been identified in one “key area”. These key areas span governance, leadership and strategy. Grading ranges from C (lowest) to AAA (highest).

“Coming off the back of a major flood in 2020, two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, a major local government reform programme, including Three Waters and RMA reform, a number of changes in leadership roles plus a council election, placed huge pressure on the organisation and our people,” Wise said.

The report highlighted leadership stability for key roles needed to be urgently addressed. Governance, leadership and strategy were marked as “variable”.

It said the council’s overall strategic direction “lacked clarity”, with a low level of alignment between priorities signalled in its Long Term Plan and expenditure decisions.

“While Council is performing well in some areas, at its core it is an organisation that has endured difficult times and is urgently in need of consistent leadership to deliver a period of stability.

“Strategic capability and greater decision-making discipline would be beneficial at the governance and executive leadership levels to ensure deliverability of the capital programme and effective management of assets.”

The city council said the report reflected the many issues it faced throughout the year, and how this had affected its resilience and organisational culture.

It also said it recognised its strengths and areas for improvement.

“Areas of strength are Council’s financial management, infrastructure planning and management and Council’s approach to external engagement and health and safety,” a release stated.

“Knowing our areas for improvement and our strengths is important for elected members and management as we deliver what our community needs,” Wise said.

On the investment, service delivery and asset management front, the council was marked as “competent”, while its communication and engagement were marked as “better than competent”.

Last month, new council chief executive Louise Miller entered the role, replacing Dr Stephanie Rotarangi, who was the council’s first female chief executive.

A residential survey last year also noted a dramatic drop in general satisfaction with council services during 2021-22.