Governance—Auckland Governance Reforms

In the new Auckland City Council, there will be two decision-making groups or tiers—the Mayor of Auckland and professional counselors as the governing body, and local boards which are component by 21 boards.

As the governing body, the Mayor is elected to provide leadership, and has crucial powers to articulate and promote a vision for Auckland, as well as the purpose of achieving the vision. As Rodney Hide said in his speech:

    ‘The Mayor will lead the development of Council plans, policies and budgets, and ensure there is effective engagement between the Auckland Council and the people of Auckland’.

Although, local boards take their responsibilities in different scale compared with the governing body. Local boards are assistance for governing body, although they are completely new regime for local government, they are very important in local decisions making, activities action, and facilities maintaining. One of their duties is to assistant the governing body to provide better communities in terms of well ensured community interests. Moreover, the consent of policies, strategies, plans and by-laws are always concerned by local boards to create wonderful communities by promoting well-being. And it is local boards’ obligation that gives the Auckland Council preferences on how to allocate the funding in their local areas.

There is also a vital component of the reforms—the Auckland Transition Agency (ATA), which was established in 2009, guides, manage, and oversee the relationships between the new council and the local boards in the process of forming the new city council. ATA, although it existed once the new Auckland Council was established, it helped the council and local boards retained their responsibilities, as well as determined the decision-making. ATA provided a guide of how the relationships between the governing body and local boards are going to be in its very short lifetime until November of 2010.

Other important institutions are the Council Controlled Organisations (CCO’s), Auckland Council Investment Ltd (ACIL), Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development Ltd (TEED), Regional Facilities Auckland (RFA), Auckland Council Property Ltd (ACPL), and the Auckland Waterfront Development Agency (AWDA).

Maori Advisory board and additional Pacific and Ethnic Advisory panels are other important governance structures in new Auckland City.