Governance Matters with Peter McKinlay

Sounds easy, but this is a really tricky question. Most council spending is on infrastructure – water, sewerage and roads. It's big ticket stuff. Scale and expertise matter.

So, should we have fewer and bigger councils – a series of mini-Aucklands to give us the size infrastructure needs? But what would this do to local voice? Across the world we know more and more people want to be part of council decisions, which affect where they live. The bigger the council, the harder this is.

Put aside Auckland, and the average population of New Zealand's district and city councils is still more than 45,000 people. What happens elsewhere? The average size of a French commune, the equivalent of a New Zealand council, is 1500 people – but France is home to the world's largest infrastructure companies. In Germany, perhaps the world's most efficient economy, the average size population of a council is about 8000 people.

Look more closely and there is a very real lesson. ‘Right size' depends very much on what you are trying to do. In local government, ‘right size' differs enormously. Infrastructure needs large-scale. Multi-council companies may be the best answer. Strategic and environmental planning needs a regional scope.

The most important part of local government, enabling people to make good choices about what happens where they live, needs a very different approach. Communities need easy access to people who know and understand them. Internationally, this suggests working around communities of about 5000-7000 and a ratio of councillors to residents of something like 2000 to 1 – not Tauranga's 10,000-plus to 1.

In my next column, I'll discuss what this means in practice.