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 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 Meetings
There are five types of meetings that Councillors are required to attend. These are:
Full Council Meetings
Full Council Meetings usually take place 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
Workshops 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.
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.
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.