Brian Anderson The Western Front www.sunlive.co.nz

Before we start thinking of change, we have to acknowledge the success of the Western Bay of Plenty District Council management team which was top of the Australasian Local Government Management Challenge last week.

This is excellent news for council's management skills, but the overall poor performance of council recorded elsewhere means we have to now focus our attention on council governance and leadership. To be fair, council and SmartGrowth planning has had to mark time until the 2013 census results are released. But by that time we will have a new council, which will have to quickly get up to speed to make necessary changes. It is now most important for us to cast a critical eye over our potential elected representatives, current and future, in light of the clean-up task ahead.

The way council operates will have to change. Its main delegated task is to enable democratic local decision-making and action by, and on behalf of, communities. But the current operation is stuck in the mud and falling well short of that goal, especially at the community level. Council's standing orders are not designed to ensure a council stands still.

We have to check the credentials of every candidate for the next council. Henri Eliot, of Board Dynamics, reports that there will be an increasing awareness of the criticality of the board/councillor role – both within governance and in the eyes of the public. Three years ago, the council decided that all members needed a speed reading course. They need more than that now. Their new roles, as councillors, demand skills in the use of new technologies, coping with the understanding of increased volumes of data. They need to have ability to debate and marshal their ideas in well-researched and documented presentations to fellow councillors, and at public meetings. Councillors must be allowed to have personal opinions, stand up in public in support of their constituents, and become leaders in their communities.

The new councillors will have to be working with, and empowering, community boards to help them in making decisions on behalf of their ward. The current council is nowhere near giving that authority or support for local community decision making, yet the new councillors will have to set up the new structures. Their hardest task will be persuading their public that there can be change for the better; and that their input is important.

The feedback that I have received so far, from the submissions on behalf of local people and the Tauranga Harbour Recreation Forum - as well as from my own issues - is evidence of a council that is closing down. For any change, we will have to start now. We are desperately in need of civic-minded intelligent candidates to stand up and challenge the current outmoded council practices that are stopping progress in our communities and building up a mountain of debt and ever increasing rates. Council is not in need necessarily of a revolution, but it is a sad case of suppressed evolution.