Central Otago District Council has received the highest possible rating for communications and engagement in an independent review, with assessors finding the council is “thriving” in an area where local authorities are often heavily criticised. 

The result formed part of a Te Korowai independent evaluation report presented at Wednesday’s council meeting, the first full council meeting of the year. 

Mayor Tamah Alley said the top rating for engagement showed the council was performing strongly on something “that councils as a whole generally cop a lot of flak for”. 

Te Korowai consultant Mark Abbott said that tension was common across local government. 

“Quite frankly, I haven’t seen any council over the last decade or decade and a half that scores particularly well with its community in terms of communication, because they’re always expecting something better or something different or something more,” Mark said. 

The review assessed council performance across four areas: governance and leadership, financial decision-making, and service delivery, as well as communications and engagement. 

Overall, the council received a rating of Mauri Tū - the second-highest possible result in the programme. 

CODC staffer Amelia Lines, who presented the report at the meeting, said the overall result showed the council had strong foundations. 

“It means we have a good foundation to work from as well to improve if we choose to do this again,” Amelia said. 

Not all councillors supported the review. 

Maniototo councillor Stu Duncan said he had not supported the decision to undertake the evaluation, suggesting the council had been “pushed into it by some of the ratepayers who were not happy with council performance”. 

“I felt it was looking for faults, and I feel it’s not there,” Stu said. 

He said the council was already in a process of continuous change, suggesting the assessment did not alter that trajectory.

Mark said the programme was not designed to find fault. 

“The intention of the programme as it’s currently shaped and framed is very much around development, improvement, and looking for what is positive,” he said. 

Te Korowai programme manager Elke Thompson said the independent nature of the process helped build trust and transparency. 

“Through the independent evaluation, it’s not just you singing your praises,” she said. 

“People can actually see that it was a robust process and that you are doing really well in many, many areas.” 

Tamah said she hoped members of the public would read the report. 

“It’s in a format that can be easily digested by our community,” she said. 

“It’s not full of jargon or confusing graphs or terminology they’re not going to follow.” 

The Te Korowai evaluation, run by Local Government New Zealand and formerly known as CouncilMARK, was carried out between June and August and included written submissions, interviews, and an in-person assessment by independent evaluators. 

Councillors voted to receive the report and note its findings.  

The next step will be a workshop to develop an action plan addressing areas identified for improvement.

The full report is available on the council's website.

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