What are we doing about service standards?

Every week I receive complaints about the condition of our parks and walkways. I see it for myself as I drive around the region and agree that our standards are not good enough. This reflects a long standing problem with the way we manage facility maintenance. People remember the pre-amalgamation quality of these facilities and it is easy to blame falling standards on the super city. In a region of almost 5,000km2 it is a big task to keep up the maintenance of every park, footpath and tree. However, our contracts should be able to keep up with the level of services we expect.

There is one upside to a lot of complaints – it allows us to escalate an issue and drives us to understand the systemic cause of the problem. In this situation it is our management, contracting and procurement structures. I have been working closely with Parks staff – all the way up to council’s Chief Operating Officer, Dean Kimpton – to understand why we have these service issues. They have been responsive to my concerns and have taken steps to improve their services.

“The left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing” is thrown around a lot when it comes to council. Often this comes down to staff accountability. It is not that council staff do not take pride in their work, but that the lines of responsibility are not always clear so problems can fall through the cracks. Over the last few months the Community Services Directorate, and teams within it, have been restructured. I trust that Dean’s decisions for his teams will address these overlaps and gaps in staff responsibilities.

As for contracting and procurement, these are complicated processes and can lack accountability. There are a number of arguments for and against contracting services. Supporters claim it is more efficient. However, the criticisms stem from contractors not understanding community expectations, and not always having the same sense of ownership that council staff would have. Cemetery maintenance is a classic example. Although many of council’s service standard policies are supposed to be on par with the legacy council arrangements, the execution of the service contracts has been different. We brought animal management ‘in house’ in 2014 and there has been a significant drop in the number of complaints since then.

Our current contracts were not established with a sound understanding of our region’s needs and assets. I hope we can move towards more in-house management and more accountable contracts. My focus is to work with staff to ensure our contractors are accountable to the community’s expectations.

Calum Penrose. Manurewa-Papakura ward councillor, Deputy Chair Parks, Recreation and Sport Committee.

ENDS

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