Rural and provincial councils say a shortage of skilled staff is preventing them from meaningfully contributing to the raft of central government reforms.
Local Government New Zealand Rural and Provincial group co-chairperson Gary Kircher Gary Kircher says structural problems at councils have been made worse by central government poaching staff. Photo: RNZ / Simon Rogers
Local Government New Zealand Rural and Provincial group co-chairperson Gary Kircher said the shortage was made worse by central government departments poaching the staff they do have.
He said councils are dealing with roading, parks and reserves and community services before adding reforms like Three Waters, the RMA, Civil Defence, an Emissions Reduction plan, Waste Minimisation and a health restructure into the mix.
"We are working in a pressure cooker environment, but this pressure will be exacerbated by the need to make meaningful contributions to the Water Services Bill, the Natural & Built Environments Bill and the Spatial Planning Bill," he said.
He said councils have asked for change because there are structural problems they want fixed, but they can not cope with them all at once and want the central government to slow the reforms down.
The call comes after all 50 R&P councils' mayors, chairs, CEs and some of their councillors met for the first time this year during a two-day forum run by Local Government NZ (LGNZ).
Kircher said small councils simply do not have teams of policy people to respond to them all at once.
"It just becomes very difficult and it's one of the things we're pushing back against is, we're happy to do these (reforms), but having them in a more ordered way would have been much better," he said.
"Employing staff is more difficult at the moment, we are trying not to steal off each other too much, but it's a problem of getting the skills that we actually need working for us in the first place."
A number of councils also said at the meeting they had skilled staff being poached by central Government departments.
"It's hitting quite a lot of councils quite hard. We just can't compete with the pay rates they're offering. People are switching and particularly if they don't have to move from where they live.
"You know it's just really difficult for us and it's putting a lot of pressure on the salaries we pay and that of course means pressure on rates," Kircher said.
Gary Kircher said an additional pressure will be staff inducting new councillors into roles later this year when those representatives could have little or no knowledge of the reforms.
The LGNZ rural and provincial co-chair Alex Walker said strong, cohesive local government that ultimately empowered communities and local decision making was needed.
"The reforms are a once-in-a-generation opportunity to get it right; let's not rush it for the sake of politics," Mayor Walker said.
The group called on the Government to work with the sector to better coordinate the timeframes and align all the reforms that impact the sector.