Mayor's push for openness brings results

Greater transparency promised in Brown's mayoral campaign is becoming a reality. Photo / Paul Estcourt

Auckland Mayor Len Brown is winning the battle for greater openness of council business and more public access to the workings of council controlled organisations.

Since the Super City began on November 1, the Auckland Council and its committees have conducted most of their business in public.

Exceptions have included a land purchase, deemed commercially sensitive, and outstanding legal battles between former councils.

But Mr Brown has come under fire from councillor Jami-Lee Ross for not including councillors in the process of appointing the mayor's political friends to the boards of CCOs and making the final decision behind closed doors.

Mr Ross, who has a history of clashes with Mr Brown stretching back to their days at the Manukau City Council, said the appointment process should have been held in public and followed the practice of private companies, for which directors are voted on at annual meetings of shareholders.

Mr Brown has defended making the appointments behind closed doors at the CCO strategy and appointments subcommittee he chairs, but promised councillors would be more involved in future appointments and in the performance reviews of CCO directors.

The mayor, who wants CCOs to hold public meetings when possible and publish agendas and minutes, is gradually being heard by the unelected boards of mostly businesspeople.

Mark Ford, who chairs the mega-transport CCO, has agreed to an open and transparent approach to decision-making following the initial meeting of the board of November 17.

But Mr Ford is following the practice of commercial boards and says he won't release the minutes of the previous meeting until they are confirmed at the next meeting.

Auckland Investments chief executive Gary Swift and Auckland Property acting chief executive David Rankin said their boards were committed to holding public meetings, but the commercial nature of their businesses meant a lot of the items would be discussed behind closed doors.

Mr Swift said Auckland Investments owned the council's 100 per cent stake in Ports of Auckland, and its competitors would love to get their hands on commercially sensitive information.

A spokeswoman for the Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development CCO said the board's first meeting on November 1 was along the lines of an establishment meeting, although three of the nine items were of a commercially sensitive nature.

The waterfront development agency, chaired by former Waitakere mayor Bob Harvey, held its first meeting in public, but the agenda did not contain any details of three commercially sensitive items.

Yesterday, the agency reluctantly said the commercially sensitive items related to a property management issue, insurance and risk, and a monthly financial report.

Mr Brown said he was generally pleased with the response from CCOs to a call for openness, but it was still early days.

Given the process and speed at which the CCOs had been set up to run more than 75 per cent of council services, he was happy with the progress on the issue of openness and confident it would continue.