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Kaipara District Council Commissioners reappointed

 

Associate Minister of Local Government Hon Louise Upston has to-day announced the three Commissioners appoint-ed to the Kaipara District Council in 2012 – John Robertson, Peter Winder and Richard Booth – are to be re-appointed for a further year.

“The Commissioners have made significant progress in addressing the Council’s issues and improving its perform-ance,” MsUpston said. “When I visited the Kai-para district in February it was clear to me there is widespread support for the Commissioners in the district, and they have made substantial progress in rebuilding the relationship between the Council and the com-munities of Kaipara.”

The Council will now have an election in Oc-tober 2016, the same as with triennial general elections for all local au-thorities.

“When an election is held, it is important that stable governance is achieved in Kaipara, and the mistakes of the past do not happen again. I

don’t consider that cur-rent circumstances lend themselves to achieving this if an election is held in October 2015. The re-appointment of the Com-missioners until October 2016 gives the district the best chance of getting the stable governance it deserves.”

Commissioners will perform and exercise the responsibilities, duties and powers of the Coun-cil. Their Terms of Refer-ence will require them to continue to address out-standing matters relating to their initial appoint-ment, such as continu-

ing to build confidence and trust in the Coun-cil, and to work to build capability and capacity within the Council or-ganisation.

A key part of the Com-missioners’ work will be to develop an exit plan to facilitate a successful transition to elected gov-ernance in 2016.

“It is important that Kaipara has a strong, stable and transparent Council providing the services Kaipara needs, at a cost ratepayers can afford. I am commit-ted to working with the Commissioners to lay

the groundwork for the Council’s long-term suc-cess under elected repre-sentation.”

Significant progress but

‘work to do’

Kaipara District Coun-cil Chair of Commission-ers John Robertson says the Council has made significant progress to-wards addressing histori-cal issues, but there re-mains work to do.

Mr Robertson said the government’s decision to reappoint the Commis-sioners for a further 12

months and bring Kai-para back into line with the normal election cycle was “sensible”.

“It will be business as usual for us until Octo-ber 2016 because, while the organisation has come a long way, there are still some tasks to complete” he said.

“We will continue to focus very strongly on the Council’s financial position. Debt is coming down and a sound long-term plan is in the mak-ing. But ensuring the organisation is in good financial shape when it is handed back to elected

members will continue

to be the key priority.”

Mr Robertson said Commissioners would continue to focus on community engagement as well as ensuring the organisation itself was “robust, transparent and resilient”.

“There’s been good progress in terms of community engagement and there are now some strong relationships be-tween the Council and Kaipara’s many commu-nities which have the po-tential to deliver some great outcomes. But this needs to be an ongoing

area of focus.”

He said the organisa-tion was much stronger than it was in September 2012 when Commission-ers were appointed. He noted Kaipara was highly commended last week by the Society of Local Gov-ernment Managers for its work on building con-sent authority accredita-tion.

“We have some good people in place deliver-ing good results for the community. It’s impor-tant that when we leave next year, we do so know-ing the the organisation is in very good shape.”

 
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