Why do Council’s feel so different to the old days?

2 December 2024. Why do Councils feel so different from the old days? Why do they seem so more impersonal?

Back in the day elected councillors were served by a Town Clerk, and assisted by a small but highly competent staff. The Town Clerk regarded themselves as a public servant working in the best interests of the ratepayer, rather than working for the best interests of the Council.

They provided contestable advice to elected members, which could be heeded, or rejected, according to the best judgement of the politicians. The public trusted the councillors to make the best decisions for the community. Councillors could even arrive at job sites and inspect work standards and oversee how effectively public money was being spent.

Today, however, elected councillors are served by a bureaucracy over which they exercise no effective control. Instead a Chief Executive of the Council runs all operations interpreting how they see fit the policy decisions voted through by the elected members. The Auckland council-controlled CCO model has Chief Executives for five substantive CCOs, as well as another CEO running the Port of Auckland and a CEO running Auckland Council. Each CCO also has its own Board of Directors.

The current Supercity structure means there is less direct accountability, particularly by staff, back to ratepayers.

Councillors are strongly discouraged from interfering with the CEO’s. “Operational” matters are the CEO’s domain and councillors are legally forbidden from adopting a “hands-on” approach to the governance of the city. Indeed, the council employs a small army of “Democracy Managers” to ensure councillors, and Local Board members, are kept well away from the coal face of delivery.

A distressed citizen can no longer pick up the phone to their local council office and complain about an issue directly with a decision maker. Calls are instead filtered by a call centre. Neither is it possible for a councillor to contact a foreman to request a ratepayers concern be looked into, or to inspect the work standards of a job with a foreman.

Were an elected member to be so audacious to do this, they would receive a call from the Council’s Democracy Manager to be forcefully reminded that they are legally prohibited from getting involved in “operational matters”.

The tail is wagging the dog. Current legislation is allowing bureaucrats to erode elected members power and their autonomy. This erosion of democracy is slow but steady, together with the loss of operational oversight of the spending of ratepayers’ money. 

Within days of being elected the Democracy Manager introduces everyone to a document called the “Code of Conduct”. At the heart of this code is a strict series of prohibitions against saying anything unpleasant or critical about the Mayor, their fellow councillors or local board members, or about the Council staff. In a way this is a gagging order.

Newly elected members are told very clearly that while they are entitled to talk about policy, they must, on no account, attempt to implement it. It is the Council staff who do this and who essentially run things. Change is required. 

What happens if an elected member disagrees with all this, stands up, and bucks against these “rules”? Then this is when the Council’s lawyers, paid for by ratepayers’ money, enter the picture.

The “non-compliant” elected member is sat down and told about the risky legal position they are getting themselves into. They will be told that if they voice their concerns, or declare their position prior to voting on an issue, then they may have a perceived conflict of interest because of a determined mind-set.

Those who have declared their position prior to the Council’s official deliberation cannot expect to cast a vote is the advice the lawyers will likely give them. They must, instead, remove themselves from any involvement in the decision. In fact, it would be most improper if they were even seated at the Council table when discussion is taking place – lest they unduly influence the outcome.

In other words, our Local Board members and councillors are democratically elected to govern their communities on one very strict condition – that they never, under any circumstances, attempt to challenge the way the bureaucracy implements their decisions.

Any Mayor, councillor or Local Board member who challenges this current set-up, seeking greater accountability of Council bureaucracy, should be applauded rather than criticised. Against the odds they have retained sufficient self-respect to say “no” to a self-fulfilling bureaucratic beast.

There are now major efforts underway to re-create greater accountability back to ratepayers from the CCO’s, including Auckland Transport. These changes have been jointly led by the Mayor and myself. Called the CCO Reform program, it already has the support of central Government’s Cabinet as law changes are required to implement the desired transformation.