A presentation to local mayors and chief executives by Greater Manchester’s Andy Burnham has added fuel to the growing discussion about city deals and devolution.
In the past few weeks Wellington councils have progressed discussions with Local Government Minister Simeon Brown and Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop on a regional deal.
“There is general agreement amongst the mayors in the Wellington region that it is best we approach city deal discussions with central government as a region. Our key issues around transport, housing, water and climate change are all connected,” Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau said.
Brown is currently working on a general framework for city and regional deals, expected to be revealed later this year. The Government has committed to institute long-term city and regional deals.
Such a deal was struck in Manchester in 2011 when 10 local authorities banded together, securing better access to central government and European Union funding, an “earn-back” fund for spending on infrastructure as well as housing, emissions-reduction and skills and training deals.
The Greater Manchester Combined Authority consists of a delegate from each of the 10 local authorities, and the mayor – Andy Burnham.
Earlier this month Burnham launched his campaign for a third term.
Beaming in via video link to a combined sector meeting of all mayors and chief executives hosted by Local Government NZ on Thursday, he said a “place-first principle” was what drove Greater Manchester.
“When you take a place-first approach from the bottom up, it’s actually quite a galvanising thing, because whatever we feel politically, wherever we’re coming from on the political spectrum, everybody starts with the pride in the place where they are and they want to see where they live doing well.
“And actually, if you go from that starting point, it’s amazing what can happen … getting the sectors to work together, public, private, voluntary a place-first principle.”
He said getting public buy-in was also more successful with this approach.
“When the public sees that debate happening, they go with place-first [ideas] not party-based and I think it’s giving the mayors more legitimacy and more power in what they’re doing.”
The potential to secure such deals is also appealing for local councils struggling with cost pressures and ratepayers around the country looking down the barrel of double – if not triple – digit rate hikes.
Greater Manchester only has to look next door to see the effects of an unsustainable financial model with Birmingham City Council declaring bankruptcy late last year.
Infrastructure NZ chief executive Nick Leggett said city deals were an “exciting prospect”.
“We have too much power and resource concentrated in Wellington and as a result, we’re witnessing now, the funding challenge that local government faces as owners of significant amounts of infrastructure, but lacking the ability to fund that infrastructure.
“Local government has to deliver growth and central government often gets the benefit in terms of GST revenue. Our estimate is that local government owns 37 percent of infrastructure and gets about 7 percent of funding.”
He said deals and place-first principles would help the infrastructure sector better deliver as well.
“You get greater surety by having an agreement between central and local government about what goes on in a region. You think about Waikato and Tauranga for example, you do need some big infrastructure projects in those areas. So, coming to a common place and agreeing on a plan and what needs to happen and when and how it’s going to be funded and who’s going to deliver it are all critical paths of getting surety around your pipeline.”
Infrastructure NZ, Civil Contractors NZ and Transporting New Zealand have previously spoken out about the need for surety and consistency in this sector.
However, Leggett, who was also the mayor or Porirua from 2010-2016 said he did not think a regional deal for Wellington was the best way forward.
“I think Wellington definitely needs attention but the idea that you need to introduce something new, like an agreement with government to get the place on track, actually no, be responsible for sorting out your own challenges first.
“The region does have a challenge in finding agreement on a shared pathway for many issues and you get uneasy compromises on things that don’t end up working that well. So I think Wellington is a different situation and deals would be better for high-growth areas like Waikato, Tauranga or Queenstown.
Hamilton mayor Paula Southgate said her city remained committed to trying to secure a deal, and while there hadn’t yet been the opportunity to really sit down and nut things out with ministers yet, the prospect remained on the agenda.
“I’ve had a few early conversations with ministers, quite a few of course, when they were running for government and a few short conversations since but they’ve pretty much been focused on their first 100-day issues.
“But at a staff level, we’re still beavering away, we’re still making it quite clear how Hamilton can deliver on central government’s needs, economic and growth needs, housing needs and those kinds of things. They know, we want an urgent conversation about the city deal, but they know that we are open to thinking about sub regional deals, not just regional deals – we’re not in competition with the rest of the region, it shouldn’t be an either or.”
Non-competitiveness was Burnham’s message to mayors and executives who had gathered Wellington yesterday.
“In some parts of local government, you can get a parochialism or pointless competitiveness that doesn’t get you anywhere.
“This idea of them [central government] always making you bid for everything … and you know, you will bring in these consultants to show you how to be better. There’s a bit of a revolt amongst the mayors really [in UK], we’re all working a bit more collaboratively than we do competitively.”
Burnham described what was happening in the UK as a “re-wiring” of the way the country operated, with a rebalancing of power which was far too centralised, and complete devolution of certain aspects of governance.
Southgate isn’t convinced total devolution is the answer, but admits more should be entrusted to local councils working under a deal.
“It is a bit of a devolution of power, or more like power sharing and fund sharing than a devolution but, we have done a lot of work to understand what’s right for our place and we can benefit the government if they enable us to do so.”
