ATA

The countdown is going and the ATA will start feeling the heat as it tries to shoe horn in the competing interests and manage the various institutional cultures toward a unified Auckland city entity. Their initial preferred structure is very streamlined, very corporate, very centralised and very CEO focused. It looks too simple - and not just because the diagram omits the elected officials from the scene.

Here's the very centralised executive Mayor structure of New York:Even here we have autonomous units outside of the Mayor and the CEO and a community of governance within the executive Mayor system - something lacking in the ATA proposal which has the CEO at the centre with very few direct reports. Len Brown's latest blog post picks up on this:

Let’s start with the worrying thing – the senior executives responsible for liaising with and overseeing community bodies and local boards are three levels down from the chief executive.

Why does this make me uneasy? One of the key concerns Aucklanders had when the government revealed the first plan for the super city was that it didn’t have enough local representation and input. That concern was so strong, the government changed the structure to include more community boards and have all councillors elected through wards, rather than some elected at large.

But the structure outlined on Monday does not appear to have strong links to local boards and communities. There will be no direct representatives of local and community interests at the council’s top level. Is this really the best structure for Auckland? Will this really ensure that Aucklanders from Manurewa and Mission Bay, Avondale and Albany, Glendowie and Glenfield receieve the attention they deserve from their new council?

I don't think the ATA knows how to adequately reflect the very minor role that local boards will play in the new reality. Since the über stadt laws that Rodney Hide and his Tory chums rammed through parliament emasculated any hope of influence and responsibility for the local boards there isn't really anything for the ATA to say on the matter.

The two key issues that would give real autonomy and credibility to local boards:
1. the ability to set their own budget through control of their own sources of revenue (inter alia the ability to strike a "local rate"), and:
2. the ability to hire and fire a manager who can action decisions of the board:
- have been canned. Without one or both measures the local board is merely an advisory committee to the council. Council will delegate things for them to do, minor decisions that are best left to the local level, but they will be as toothless as they are now - maybe even more so considering the council's power and the number of boards.

I’m also concerned that we still don’t know how the Council Controlled Organisations (CCOs) will link to the council, and that it will be another month before we find out. It’s proposed that vital infrastructure such as transport will be controlled by such organisations – all Aucklanders need to know sooner rather than later what these plans are, so we all have time to make well-considered submissions before the super city structure is finalised.

The transport agency may be nothing more than another fudge. At the moment the sector is divided between so many different players with multiple demarcation issues that Wellington continues to call all the shots. Without any dedicated funding - like the local fuel tax that National dumped - the investment into public transport and in particular the rail system will be incomplete.

An inclusive mayor who works in the interests of all Auckland, backed by an effective and efficient council and executive, can make any structure work. But we want the best structure – one that benefits all Aucklanders.

With just a year to go before the super city comes into existence, and just a month or two for public comment and submissions before the structure is finalised, Aucklanders need to know sooner rather than later precisely what’s proposed. That’s the only way we can have meaningful input and ensure the final structure unites all Auckland in a city that really works.

The public are supposed to be doing the proposing - not just the ATA. The blank slate is being filled in - but not by the public.