7 October 2024. In 2010, the government chose to establish seven substantive Council Controlled Organisations (CCOs) in Auckland to deliver Council services without the publics input or consultation. This included establishing Auckland Transport as its own statutory body, granting it full control over all local roads and significant delegated powers equivalent to a regional council.
It is a misnomer to call Auckland Transport a Council Controlled Organisation, it is not controlled by elected members, and therefore not ultimately by Auckland’s ratepayers.

The CEO of Auckland Transport is accountable to a Board of Directors, who are then accountable to Auckland Council. However, this accountability is merely by way of updating the Council. Basically, the Board of Directors fully govern Auckland Transport.
The CEO of Auckland Transport controls the daily operations and reports to the Board of Directors. There is no control given to the Mayor and therefore no democratic control given to the Auckland ratepayer.
Other than the Board of Directors there is another power controlling Auckland Transport. The current law allows the Minister of Transport to control 51 percent of Auckland Transport’s funding and the power to dictate to the Board of Directors which projects money is spent on.
Auckland Council’s role under the law is one merely of a shareholder. It can appoint the members of the Auckland Transport board and provides it with a Letter of Expectation, which includes direction and targets, to which the Auckland Transport Board responds with a Statement of Intent.
Auckland Transport is “accountable” to the Council through these mechanisms. However, this pseudo accountability is not the same has having control.
Despite progress from various external reviews over the years, many of the challenges identified with the CCO model are still being observed, including concerns about public trust and confidence, strategic misalignment, ineffective democratic accountability, cost-effectiveness and duplication of services.
The question Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown is wrestling with is the potential of jumping from the frying-pan into the fire if Auckland Transport was brought in-house under Auckland Council.

One of the original reasons Auckland Transport was set up was to remove political squabbling between regional councillors who were wanting to achieve short-term wins rather than thinking long term and building infrastructure ahead of Auckland’s housing growth.
Unlike previous Mayors, Wayne Brown has taken on the challenge to address whether Auckland Transport has systemic problems that require massive structural change, or whether further adjustments to the existing model could address these problems, including gaining control and accountability back to ratepayers.
Curiously and unbeknown to Mayor Brown, the New Zealand First leader and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters has introduced a member’s bill to Parliament that seeks to disestablish Auckland Transport. The bill must be drawn from a biscuit tin in order to be considered by Parliament.
Meantime, the Mayor will be working on his own solutions with the goal of presenting an alternative to Aucklanders for managing Auckland Transport. This is likely to include how the give Local Board’s more power so local knowledge can be better harnessed , as well as other structural changes to gain greater accountability back to ratepayers.