Each council triennium we seem to have at least one council that maintains its place on our newspaper front pages for all the wrong reasons, writes Andy Asquith, Monash University Public Policy and Management Associate.
In 2019 it was Tauranga, last triennium it was Gore Council, which very quickly turned to custard after the election – although pleasingly the situation in Gore has been turned around.
In both cases – as in other similar examples – we have experienced council dysfunction caused by a failure of governance practices. On many occasions the root cause of this is down to a single person entering the council chamber, seemingly with an agenda to upend the status quo and do things differently.
Invariably, the individual concerned has little or no knowledge of local government, and certainly they will never have previously served on either a community board or council. All too often we have people attempting to transplant experience and ‘expertise’ from different settings into local government without any understanding of the unique nature of our local councils.
The most recent public example of this ill-matched approach in the current triennium comes from Dunedin City Council.
We have a right to expect the highest standards of behaviour and conduct from those who serve in public office. DCC are custodians and stewards of hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of public assets. The Council needs to be focused on ensuring that these assets are bequeathed to future generations in a fit-for-purpose state. This needs a united Council working together on a well-defined strategy for Dunedin.
What we are unfortunately witnessing in that city is a council wasting valuable financial, human and time resources dealing with the antics of one councillor. It’s not as though local government has anything else on its plate at the moment!
Whenever I think about the conduct of those in public office, I am automatically drawn to something called the Nolan Principles. These were crafted in 1994 by Lord Nolan in the UK because of a number of high-profile political missteps and scandals.
The seven principles are designed to provide clear guard rails governing the roles and actions an anyone holding public office. They are:
Selflessness: holders of public office should act solely in terms of the public interest.
Integrity: holders of public office must avoid placing themselves under any obligation to people or organisations that might try inappropriately to influence them in their work. They should not act or take decisions in order to gain financial or other material benefits for themselves, their family, or their friends. They must declare and resolve any interests and relationships.
Objectivity: holders of public office must act and take decisions impartially, fairly and on merit, using the best evidence and without discrimination or bias.
Accountability: holders of public office are accountable to the public for their decisions and actions and must submit themselves to the scrutiny necessary to ensure this.
Openness: holders of public office should act and take decisions in an open and transparent manner. Information should not be withheld from the public unless there are clear and lawful reasons for so doing.
Honesty: holders of public office should be truthful.
Leadership: holders of public office should exhibit these principles in their own behaviour and treat others with respect. They should actively promote and robustly support the principles and challenge poor behaviour wherever it occurs.
When we have failures to act within the guidelines provided by Nolan, we risk two things. Firstly, we erode not only confidence in public office and the institutions they serve in, but more widely we signal that rules – laws even – are optional. They are not.
We are also at risk of fundamentally weakening the institutions by questioning not only their relevance and sustained existence, but also the competence and capability of those who serve within them.
A small number of councillors are on record in public fora of questioning the motives and competence of senior council office holders. These attacks were cowardly. When unelected officials are attacked like this, they cannot respond and the doubt – as false as it actually is – is out in the public domain.
This in turn leads to stress, burnout and departure. We are in danger of seeing many hard-working local government employees simply leave the sector because of the unnecessary stress caused by these types of comments.
I know of one formerly very proud local government employee who now always removes their council’s name badge whenever out for lunch because of abuse they have received from simply working for it.
The abuse began due to one councillor’s ill-informed opinion that people working for council were somehow second-class citizens. Nothing more could be further from the truth. If the behaviour of a few councillors goes unchecked, we risk losing centuries worth of institutional knowledge and expertise from the local government sector.
Perhaps it really is time for Ministers Simon Watts and Chris Bishop to legislate and embrace the Nolan Principles rather than advancing a Baldrickian [like the character from television series Black Adder] local government reorganisation scheme dreamt up on the back of a cigarette packet? It may well have more meaningful and long-lasting impact.