What has this council actually achieved?

Someone told me the other day that he believed the only achievement of this council so far this term is that we have not undone the work of the last council. He then went on to say that the city is progressing DESPITE council. This got me thinking - what has this council achieved?

What’s been done in the six months since the new council took office? If you have answers please post them below, because, try as I might, I cannot disagree with the gentleman I mentioned above.

The Mayor was elected on a platform of “putting the community back into council”. That has been her only position statement and after six months we still do not know what she actually means by that, how she intends to have a measurable outcome, or what direction she wants council to take.

We had the Community Forum and the Mayor has her moccachino mornings, we even had a workshop where representatives of community groups came along and told us their definitions of community development. To what end? None so far. Listening is all very well (and I hope that councillors always do listen) but in my opinion listening means treating the speaker with respect, attempting to understand the points they make, and taking their opinions on board when it comes to implementing any decisions to which they relate. It doesn’t mean saying, “Thank you very much for coming along” then promptly forgetting about them.

We have 17 Standing Committees (almost double the national average I am told) with workshops and briefings galore. I guess some unkind souls may say this council has elevated the talkfest to an art. However, from all the talk, comes very little action.

The only quantifiable result of these endless talkfests is seen in the enormous, and completely unnecessary, additional workload being put on to staff. Staff are present at all the meetings and are called upon to present reports. By the time the meetings are over, they walk away with instructions to present yet more reports, often on topics which were fully reported previously.
We have workshops and briefings, often on the exact same material which has been previously covered in workshops - simply because certain councillors either chose not to attend the earlier ones, or have forgotten them.

Now, keep in mind that council staff have a duty to keep council ticking over and to implement council decisions. A small part of their role is to research and present information so councillors can make informed decisions. We have staff who are now spending so many of their days and nights at council meetings and reporting on reports that their ability to do the other work is seriously compromised. We do not have two staff members for every position so when one is away pandering to council whims there is no-one to step in to keep the workload moving.

Some councillors have suggested the easy solution is to hire more staff. Let’s put that in perspective. PNCC already has over 500 staff. Local government is expected to have the resources necessary to enable it to carry out its functions effectively and efficiently. The problem is, we do have sufficient staff to do the job - as long as they are not being sidetracked into endless reporting to councillors. I understand most councils in the country have around 4 - 6 Standing Committees. We have 17 (which includes the 5 Ward Committees). Compare that to the numbers of committees other councils have. Dunedin, with its 122,000 people, has 7 Standing Committees and 6 Community Boards; Auckland has 10 committees, 10 Community Boards, and services over 400,000 people.
If Auckland was to follow the Palmerston North model it would have 61 Standing Committees!

As I said, local government is expected to have the resources necessary to enable it to carry out its functions effectively and efficiently. Given the sheer number of talkfests, one could reasonably assume that there would be results. With the way council goes around in circles continually discussing the same issues over and again, I doubt even the most imaginative person could say this council is being either efficient or effective.

We could apply the bandaid solution and employ more staff so there were enough free to do nothing more than report to council. Add direct staffing costs to the overheads of providing them with office space, computers, desks and the like and it could cost somewhere in the vicinity of $100,000 per staff member. How many would we need? The Mayor has already taken up one half-time staff member just to work with her on her “Mayors Taskforce for Jobs” (at a cost to ratepayers of $45,000). How much do you want your rates to go up? Perhaps the better question is, how long will it be before the public of Palmerston North start demanding some achievements from this council? At the end of the day, no matter how many staff are employed to deal with the councillors shenanigans we are not going to have an effective or efficient council until this current bunch wake up to what they are doing.