Local Government Reform: What It Means for Recreation, Sport & Community Services

On the 7th of May the NZ government announced a "simplification" of Local Government in New Zealand, proposing the replacement of regional councils and amalgamations of territorial authorities. At the time of the announcement, it was signalled local government could either undertake this voluntarily, or accept central governments directive on how this should happen.

The intent of this change was signalled some time ago, however the speed of decisions surrounding the change is already creating some angst along with additional workload within local government.

As a Trusted Advisor to many local government clients, RSL acknowledges the current stress these announcements may have caused at both organisation and individual levels. We are keen to play our part and offer some guidance and reassurance. As a way of supporting the wider recreation and sport employees within local government RSL will be researching and compiling a series of articles over the coming months to assist councils, and their partners, to understand the proposed changes and most importantly what opportunities may arise.

A proposed series of articles from RSL currently looks like this:

Article One: How prepared are we in the recreation and sport area for reform?

What is currently done well regionally? What areas of work need more focus? How do we transition from local to regional?

Article Two: What learnings can we take from international examples of reform and past NZ examples

Lessons from LG reform internationally, including input from SLC - transforming public leisure services, subject matter experts in the UK. What worked well with the Auckland "Super City" reform (and what didn't)? What learning can be taken from other change / reform processes?

Article Three: What organisational delivery models are most likely to succeed due to reform

What is emerging as potential delivery models? What opportunities are there to future-proof and proactively prepare?

Article Four: Emerging LG Reform Models - an assessment of change to date

Analysis of the early changes proposed. What impact are these changes likely to play in recreation, sport and community services?

If you or others in your organisation want other areas of the proposed reform researched and synthesised into easy-to-use guidance, then please get in contact with us. Alternatively, if you would like to speak to a human, then call Richard on 021 274 6540.