Comment: Gearing up for the annual plan season

Dr Lisa Harper

Every year in March and April, councils around the country issue their draft annual plans for consultation.

Don't dismiss them as unimportant, unless you don't really mind what the number is at the bottom of your rates bill.

Annual plans outline how the council intends to conduct their business for the financial year starting in July, and cover issues ranging from roading to biosecurity, infrastructure investment to debt levels. Crucially for ratepayers, the post-consultation plan translates directly into rates demands.

The annual plan is set within the context of the meatier Long Term Plan (LTP), which is reviewed every three years and refines policies for the decade ahead. If an annual plan proposes a significant variation to the LTP, this has to be signalled to ratepayers.

The potential implications of these plans on the lives of rural people are obvious, with farmers particularly interested in their rates bills, along with funding allocations for rural roads and pest management. So as the first leaves begin to turn and farmers start putting the rams out, the Federated Farmers policy team gears up for annual plan season.

Our job is to write submissions reflecting the views and concerns of our farmer members.

Any resident (or their representative) is entitled to make a submission and councils actively encourage people to have their say.

After all, they're only as good as the information that feeds into them.

I will write submissions on four or five councils' annual plans this autumn -- a relatively modest number compared with some of my colleagues.

A previous CEO used to joke that the average Federated Farmers policy adviser reads their height in paper every year and that's pretty accurate.

Daunting as this might sound to some people, there's a strangely satisfying feeling in watching a stack of paper slowly diminish and a submission emerge.

Federated Farmers, like the council, depends on our community to inform this work.

While we do the grunt work for our members, we rely on farmers and rural people generally to relay their feedback to us, so that we can make sure they are heard.

So if you have information or concerns we need to know, please pick up the phone and call your local Feds office this annual plan season.