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Governance

The Governance Role Of The Waimate District Council

The Council has the overall responsibility and accountability for the management of the Council’s activities that support and enhance community outcomes.

This responsibility includes:

Producing and maintaining the Long-Term Council Community Plan (LTCCP) that outlines the strategic direction for this district as jointly formulated by the community and the council.
Defining and executing the services and activities undertaken to support the LTCCP.
Managing principal risks that may hinder successful achievement of the plan.
Monitoring progress on delivery of the LTCCP.
Administering various regulations and up-holding the law.
Ensuring the integrity of internal management control systems.
Safe guarding the public interest.
Reporting to ratepayers.
Ensuring effective succession of elected members.

Council Operations

The council has appointed a Chief Executive Officer to be in charge of council operations and delegated certain powers of management to that position as required under section 42 of the Local Government Act, 2002.

The staff are organised into six departments:

Chief Executive Officer's Department
Asset Management Department
Corporate Services Department
Planning and Regulatory Department
Parks and Reserves Department
Community Services Department

Independent Elections

The democratic election of Waimate District Councillors by the District citizens is the foundation of a governance system that supports the best interest of the community.

Elections for local Councils are held 3-yearly throughout all of New Zealand. Upcoming election years include 2007 and 2010. The election is conducted by mail. Residents who meet the residential criteria and ratepayers, have the opportunity to elect one or more Councillors, depending on the size of the Ward they reside or own property in, and the office of Mayor.

The Waimate District Council has 8 Councillors plus the Mayor.

There are three Councillors for the Waimate Ward, two for the Pareora-Otaio-Makikihi Ward and one each for Hakataramea, Waihao and Deep Creek Wards. The Mayor is elected by the whole District. Click here to view a map showing the location of the Wards.

Council Meetings

There are five types of meetings that Councillors are required to attend. These are:

Full Council Meetings

Full Council Meetings take place monthly, and are usually held on the third Tuesday of the month.

The purpose of the full Council Meetings is to devise District Policy, make decisions that enhance the community’s well-being, monitor management activities and to ensure the affairs of the Council are being conducted in accordance with legislative mandate and Council objectives.

The Council also monitors the performance of Council organisations and Council Controlled Organisations.

Extraordinary Council Meetings

Extraordinary meetings of Council are called from time to time for specific purposes such as the adoption of rates or to meet a deadline that the normal full Council meeting does not effectively match. Otherwise they are similar in format to a full Council Meeting

Emergency Council Meetings

Emergency meetings are called rarely and must have a specific urgent reason for taking place. They are only called if there is insufficient time for an Extraordinary Meeting to be called. The requirements for public advertisement are relaxed but the results of these meetings must be fully publicised.

Sub Committee Meetings

Sub Committees are special groups, usually created for a specific activity. Their meetings are held whenever convenient and whenever their operations demand it.

Council Workshops

The other type of meeting that councillors commonly attend are Workshops. These are used for working sessions, typically when generating new policies, where the formal meeting environment is not appropriate. The workshops are usually held on the first Tuesday of each month.

Council Sub Committees

The council sets up sub committees from time to time to deal with specific functions and activities. These sub committees report directly to a relevant standing committee.

Sub committees may contain members other than elected members and may or may not be given the “Power to Act” which means that they may be able to make decisions on behalf of the relevant committee.

Public Access to Meetings

In general, meetings of the Council and its committees are open to any member of the public to attend. This applies to regular and Extraordinary meetings.

Permission to speak may be granted from time to time by the Chairman of these meetings. At the full Council meetings on the third Tuesday of each month Council have allocated a special time of 1pm as a public session.

All regular full Council meetings shall be publicly notified not more than 14 days and not less than 5 days before the end of every month.

Special case - Emergency Meetings

Emergency meetings can be called without prior advertisement if actions must take place before the usual advertisement period elapses, but are immediately followed by publication of any decisions reached or resolutions made. There must be a valid reason why the ‘Emergency’ status was applied.

The lack of pre-advertising makes it difficult for members of the public to be aware that these meetings are occurring, but they are rarely required.

Workshops

Workshops are designed as sessions where Councillors, and often staff, can work jointly on developing plans and policies etc. Members of the public may be invited to participate and these workshops are open to public and are publicly advertised.

Meeting Agendas

Agendas for all scheduled meetings are available from the council offices at least two working days before each meeting.

Public-Excluded sessions

All meetings may have a publicly excluded session otherwise known as “In Committee”, where public and representatives of the press are required to vacate the meeting. However such sessions can only be called under a set of circumstances limited to the following:

To protect individuals privacy
To protect information that would disclose trade secrets.
To protect information that would unreasonably prejudice the commercial position of individuals.
To protect information which is subject to an obligation of confidence
To avoid measures which would reduce the health and safety of members of the public
To avoid causing material loss to the members of the public
To protect people against harassment
To maintain legal professional privilege
To enable the WDC to carry out commercial activities and negotiations
To prevent the disclosure of official information for improper use.

Legislative compliance

The council is defined as a regulatory body as it is required to administer various regulations and laws as such it is vital that it also complies with all relevant legislation. The Council uses external law firms with local government expertise to help ensure that it complies with applicable legislation.

Decision Making

Council Role

The Council is required to make decisions that range from day-to-day operational matters through to those surrounding the whole Community’s long term vision.
The processes for dealing with decision-making require us to look at each issue and then see which of the following two groups it most closely fits into:

Those that require community consultation and/or community knowledge to complete.
Those which the Council can proceed to make without the need for specific consultation.

Each group has its own requirements for how a decision will be reached and greatly different expected resulting timescales. The Council has developed a policy numbered 301 and called "Significance Policy". This describes how a decision is judged to be “significant” (requires consultation) or “not significant” (not requiring consultation). A copy of this policy can be found in Volume 4 of the LTCCP.

When the community must be consulted, the process used is known as the Special Consultative Process. This is, in reality, not a fixed process, but rather, a group of possible methods from which one or more are chosen to fit the specific circumstances. The Waimate District’s Special Consultative Process is described below.

The Importance of the LTCCP

The LTCCP is of key importance as it can often guide the Council to making decisions in accordance with the Community’s wishes and expectations without having to resort to direct consultation with its resulting delays.

There will, however, always be factors that create issues where the LTCCP is likely to require changes or enhancement and, in these situations, the Special Consultative Process will be needed.

The Special Consultative Process

The Waimate District Council has identified a number of ways in which it can consult with the Community as a whole, specific groups and/or individuals as is appropriate to the matter under review.

These include:

Surveys, (usually by telephone), of citizens with respect to issues and service levels.
Referenda – (used very rarely because of cost).
Submissions to the LTCCP and Annual Plans
Public Submissions sought on specific Issues or Policies
Workshops held with a Community Panel
Direct discussions with affected interest groups and individuals
Public Meetings, often with draft intentions for discussion
Special Workgroups or subcommittees created by Council for specific areas of interest

In order to make these processes work, the Council has:

Developed expertise in survey preparation
Created Work Groups and subcommittees
Constituted and implemented a Community Panel
Generated an on-going list of Organisations and Special Interest groups within the District
Established communication and involvement protocols with local Maori groups
Begun work on developing a Special Consultative Process Policy document.

How will Council apply the differing methods of Community Consultation?

The key to finding which method of consultation will suit each issue, lies in identifying the affected parties.

For each issue that arises, Council will therefore be interested to determine if the people affected are for instance, in a particular geographical area, of a particular age group, members of a particular club/society , operating within a particular culture or industry or if the issue affects all of our residents. Once the affected parties are identified, Council will then choose from the range of consultation methods, the method best suited to reaching our target group.

Consultation is not a “one size fits all” exercise, Council will seek to assess the success of each method of consultation that we conduct, so that we are continually refining our consultation skills, and finding methods that suit the Waimate Community.

A special case arises when the issue is “significant”, as defined by Council’s Significance Policy (Volume 4, LTCCP). Where an issue is large enough, affects the Districts strategic assets, or affects any group within our Community very strongly, then the issue may be considered significant. In the case of significant issues, a formal process is followed, whereby Council will produce and analysis of the issue, and detail all the various options for resolving it and the costs. The options will then be published for public submissions and hearings before any decision can be made.

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