Growth, transport and housing are just some of the big issues that Auckland Council will be grappling with in the coming years.
There will be big decisions that the council needs to make on both a local and regional level, and ensuring the council’s elected members have confidence they have heard from Aucklanders across the range – whether they are new to the city or have been here their whole life, is a crucial part in making sure we get the decisions right.
Encouraging signs
And the signs are encouraging. Following on from the record-breaking Long-term Plan (LTP) consultation in 2015, when more than 27,000 Aucklanders had their say in what became the largest LTP in New Zealand’s history, we received record breaking numbers in our Annual Budget consultation this year.
The 8058 submissions received in the consultation was an increase of more than 140 per cent on the previous year and triple the number of submissions compared to 2014/15.
Auckland Council’s director of communication and engagement, Karl Ferguson, says that the work going into engaging with Aucklanders is a constant, evolving process.
“We know that Aucklanders want to have a strong voice in shaping decisions that affect them, and we want to hear from as many as possible, so we are constantly employing new methods to reach our diverse communities.
“During this year’s Annual Budget we went further than ever to capture feedback and report back to our elected members.
“We were more targeted, and went to where we knew people were instead of expecting them to come to us. We also recognised that our community is diverse so we made our documentation more accessible and translated into multiple languages. This resulted in an 18 per cent increase in feedback from communities including Maori, Pasifika and Asian Aucklanders
“There was also an increased use of our people’s panel which helped increase the number of submissions – while our round table conversations at have your say and other events saw around 1500 Aucklanders providing feedback in person.
“That effort really paid off, and meant that we were able to provide good quality information to our elected members and aid them with their decision making.
“I am confident that we will continue to build on the success of this consultation and in future will see more and more Aucklanders having their say on decisions that council makes.”