KEY POINTS:
Academic Paul Rouse says his experience living in Mt Albert backs up his economic research showing bigger is not better for local government. In fact, some results suggest the opposite.
"My personal experience living in Mt Albert leads me to prefer to see smaller councils attuned to ratepayers
and localities," says the associate professor of management accounting at the University of Auckland Business School.
In a submission to the Royal Commission of Inquiry on Auckland Governance, he said: "Mt Albert has suffered from amalgamation and residents have seen a steady deterioration in local amenities, especially with the Auckland council's neglect of Mt Albert village and its housing density policy in places like St Lukes.
"While nostalgia is usually rose-tinted, most Mt Albert residents remember our annual organic and inorganic collection and active involvement of our Mt Albert council.
"Auckland City Council has proven too remote for suburbs such as Mt Albert [and] I dread to think how much worse this will be under the proposed super city."
Professor Rouse has highlighted research he and a colleague, Martin Putterill, published in 2005 examining the performance of road maintenance before and after the last big local government shake-up in 1989.
He started out thinking amalgamation was a good thing but found noevidence of increased efficiency from larger councils. Theoretical and limited evidence studies also supported the view that efficiency was not aligned with increasing size.
In fact, he said the evidence suggested that smaller councils were more efficient, effective and satisfied the principles of accountability and public access.
"Accountability, especially, must be paramount in any public organisation and the larger the organisation, the more diluted accountability becomes."
The pair's work is the onlyscientific analysis of the 1989 round of Auckland local government amalgamations, when 29 territorial councils were reduced to seven plus a regional council.
In their submissions, the Auckland Regional Council said a Greater Auckland Council supported by about 30 community councils would lead to potential savings of $160 million a year and the New Zealand Council for Infrastructure Development said it would be reasonable to expect savings of $200 million a year from the current $2 billion running costs. Neither have produced robust analysis to back up their claims.
In his submission, Professor Rouse supported a regional council handling regional issues, but wanted to see more local councils.
"A larger Auckland council will not only worsen ratepayers' channel of communication to policymakers but will also increase the power of lobby groups while reducing the accountability of councillors."
