Council performance targets 'unrealistic'

Council chief executive Geoff Williams said many of the targets, especially in the economic development area, were only just missed.

Rotorua district councillors are asking for more realistic performance measures to be introduced after it was revealed that just three council departments achieved their targets in the last financial year.

Councillors met yesterday to discuss the council's draft annual report for the last financial year at an extraordinary meeting of the council's Operations and Monitoring Committee.

The draft report revealed that the Rotorua District Council achieved 99 of its 144 (68.75 per cent) performance measures between July 1, 2013, and June 30, 2014. The worst-performing of the 19 council activities measured was economic development, which hit just nine of its 26 (34.6 per cent) performance targets.

The three activities that managed a 100 per cent record were governance and strategic direction, events and venues, and Rotorua Airport infrastructure. Ten of the 19 activities measured missed a 100 per cent record by just one performance indicator.

Councillor Glenys Searancke said she was not overly concerned as it was not realistic to have set so many targets, with some of them over-optimistic.

Councillor Charles Sturt also suggested reviewing performance targets more regularly to make sure they were realistic but not too easy to achieve.

Council chief executive Geoff Williams said many of the targets, especially in the economic development area, were only just missed.

For example, the council missed its target of increasing total visitor expenditure in Rotorua from $502 million to $538 million, ending up with an estimated $510 million, which was still a substantial increase, he said.

But targets around how safe people felt in the city, the provision for public toilets and the number of specific business inquiries generated were not met. Conversely, event and venues hit all of its performance targets, but only just.

It managed to hit its target of 85 per cent of locals visiting or using an event venue in the past 12 months and its target of bringing 11,000 conference delegates to the city.

The draft annual report stated overall debt was on target to remain at $168.7 million.

Councillors will meet next Thursday night to approve the annual report for release.