Richard Dunbar and Phil McDermott: Boards help locals help themselves

Opinion

The challenge for the new Auckland Council will be to hear and balance local needs with the regional drive for international competitiveness and ongoing prosperity.

A perceived failure to do this in the past was one of the reasons the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance was established. Interestingly, the model proposed by central government may offer more opportunity for local engagement than the commission's proposals.

Local boards could become key agents of community development as they provide a means for a large and potentially cumbersome council to engage effectively with local communities.

The potential mandates for the local boards are broad and we warn against the trap of arguing over who does what. The new council will contract many of its functions to community-controlled organisations and perhaps even private suppliers.

Similarly, why should the local boards be preoccupied with the minutiae of local service delivery and complying with the detailed requirements of management when they would be better occupied defining what those services should be and working with the council to ensure they can be delivered in a way which meet local expectations?

The Government's proposal for 20 to 30 local boards that define, articulate and respond to communities of interest is better for local democracy than the large and centralised "Social Issues Board" debating departmental budgets recommended by the royal commission. A central Auckland Council acting on the advice of local boards will also be better for local democracy than establishing six councils charged with implementing the council's policies.

The community-based approach that local boards make possible suggests we need to find ways to get the resources (funds, good people and facilities) to where they are needed in response to the needs of individual communities. It will be important for the council, with the help of the boards, to support local leaders, to respond to local initiatives and to accommodate local circumstances.

This Government's proposal need not be about central agencies developing grand strategies and plans for spending money, so much as supporting initiatives defined by the communities themselves. These might relate to what facilities are needed - recreation centres, libraries, pools and the like - and how they might be managed and funded.

Communities may have a lot to say about the quality of the places they live in - how streetscapes, parks, reserves, shopping centres and community facilities might be planned and managed. Or, they may influence social programmes - for youth, immigrants or the elderly, for example.

By being able to find their own solutions to their own needs, communities will be strengthened and made more resilient. Unlike other forms of capital, this form of "social capital" grows the more it is used. We should take full advantage of this characteristic.

The royal commission talks a lot about democracy and representation, but not so much about the sorts of engagement that can empower communities. Surveys, citizens' panels and workshops can tap into knowledge and skills but engagement is more than that.

It means working with communities to help them define local needs and options and responding accordingly. The function of the local boards therefore becomes one of facilitation, working in partnership with communities and the council rather than simply in a local service delivery role.

As Professor Robin Hambleton, adviser to the commission, emphasised, leaders need to be able to engage with local communities as well as with national and international communities. The local boards may well provide the best means for doing that.

Defining the boundaries for boards carefully, ensuring they reflect communities of interest as well as possible, rather than building on some pre-determined formula, seems critical to effective, ongoing engagement.

It is significant that the Government has entrusted this job to the Local Government Commission. It has a statutory and practical tradition of listening to communities and interest groups as well as considering the determinants of effective local government and setting boundaries accordingly. Auckland will benefit if this is done well.

Properly constituted local boards can provide scope for recognising diversity, harnessing leadership and empowering communities to advance social wellbeing.

This seems a more practical and direct approach than that offered by the royal commission which proposed a centralised apparatus comprising a social issues committee of the Auckland Council, a Social Issues Board building on an unwieldy mix of central and regional politicians, officials and community groups and a Social Issues Advisory Group of central and local government officers.

* Richard Dunbar and Phil McDermott are from urban development consultancy CityScope.