Jane Nees BOP Regional Councillor www.janenees.co.nz

I recently attended the annual conference of Local Government New Zealand. This is a good opportunity to catch-up with what is happening around the country on the local government front. Not surprisingly, the conference concentrated on discussing the challenges ahead and considered solutions for our future.

There were four major topics: Auckland and its progress to becoming a super-city; disaster recovery in Christchurch and its implications for the rest of New Zealand; the broadband rollout and what can be done to leverage the opportunity this provides; and the appetite of central government for local government reform.

Prime Minister John Key acknowledged the successes of the Auckland model – reducing duplication, streamlining processes, holding costs and making faster decisions.

But he made it clear that he wants any further changes to be locally led not driven by central government.

He felt it is important for local democracy to decide what suits their own community, and noted that one size does not fit all.

However, he encouraged local government in all parts of New Zealand to review their own structures in their regions to determine where and how they could operate better.

Surprisingly, the Minister of Local Government, Rodney Hide, said we must never lose the local in local government or lose sight of the small communities – they are local government at its very best.

While the Auckland model has delivered reduced costs and improved decision-making, he sees benefits in shared services and shared planning as a viable alternative to amalgamation. While some cities may want to follow the Auckland model, he suggested that they watch how Auckland unfolds first.

He sees better alignment between central and local government to be the key success factor for the future. This is happening in Auckland and it is working very well. He believes local government is overly burdened by central government legislation and interventions – and that the Local Government Act is too prescriptive.

He called for a set of principles for local government/central government relationships and agreed ways of working – for example, a clear assessment of the level of government that is most suited to make a decision.

Phil Twyford, the Labour party spokesman on local government acknowledged our future success will require smart, effective government. He said Labour has no agenda to prune local government – they will leave it to the community to make this decision democratically. There would be no forced amalgamations under Labour.

So it seems the heat is off local government reforms, but a lot is still happening. The government's review of local government, the Smarter Government, Stronger Communities project, is still underway and will no doubt produce some interesting recommendations.

In the interim, our local councils need to be concentrating on doing the very best they can for their constituents – providing quality services at an affordable price.

Regionally, we should be doing all we can to advance shared services to reduce overheads and streamline our activities.

Whether we chose structural reform or not in the Bay of Plenty, we can all work a lot smarter.

If you have views about this, or any other issue, please email me at neesj@xtra.co.nz