Top Council Award – The Full List

13 September 2007

Top Council Award – The Full List

Full results of where councils around the country rated in the Federated Farmers’ Top Council Award are attached.

The aim of the awards is to give recognition to councils based on the responses to a Rates Report Card, an informal questionnaire filled out mainly at rural field days around New Zealand over the past six months. A high grade means that a council is:

• Open and approachable
• Takes notice of ratepayers’ views
• Acts without bias
• Provides good roads
• Implements the Resource Management Act well.
• Gives good value for ratepayers money
• Gives ratepayers a good understanding of where rates revenue is spent
• Charges affordable rates and spends prudently.

The results were collated into an overall report card grade, with Taranaki Regional Council receiving the highest grade of A minus.

A total of 64 councils received grades. See the attached document for full results.

For more information:
Charlie Pedersen, 027 446 3480

Background Information:

The Process
Rates report cards were sent to all Federated Farmers members via provincial newsletters, were distributed at several Field Days, and were publicly available from the Federated Farmers website.

A total of 1,813 responses were received by 29 August (of which 64.5% were from Federated Farmers members).

This is not a scientific survey for the following reasons:

- Responses were sent out and received over a six month period.

- There was a wide variety of people who responded: mainly farmers, but also lifestyle block holders, as well as town and city dwellers.

- There was some follow-up prompting in some areas, but not in others.

- The report card was self-selecting – i.e., people who completed and returned the report card were more likely to be those with a specific interest in or concern about local government issues.

However, while downplaying its ‘scientific rigour’ we are confident that the results are indicative of perceptions that many rural people have about their councils.

The Questions

The rates report card asked a total of 19 questions.

The first two questions asked respondents to complete their contact details (name, phone number, e-mail address) and to list the council they were rating. Respondents were encouraged to fill in the report card twice – for their district and their regional council. However, in practice most people only completed the form for their district council.

Ten questions asked for respondents’ perceptions on council performance in terms of listening (openness, taking notice of views, lack of bias), service satisfaction (on RMA and roads), and rates (value for money, transparency, affordability, respecting ratepayers’ money). This is by assigning a number between 1 and 5 (1 = disagree strongly, 5 = agree strongly). It is against these 10 perception questions on which councils are graded.

Five questions sought yes/no responses on whether the respondent had met their council’s mayor or two or more councillors, and whether respondents had used the library, swimming pool, parks and reserves, and public passenger transport.

Analysis and Presentation of Results
The councils were graded on the basis of the perceptions of respondents.

The results for each council’s 10 perception questions are averaged meaning that each council will have a ‘score’ for each question, which is a number between 1 and 5 (with ‘1’ being the worst possible perception score and ‘5’ being the best possible perception score).

However, rather than present a ‘score’ for each council we have chosen instead to assign a grade, as follows:

Score Grade
Over 3.80 A+
3.60-3.79 A
3.40-3.59 A-
3.20-3.39 B+
3.00-3.19 B
2.80-2.99 B-
2.60-2.79 C+
2.40-2.59 C
2.20-2.39 C-
2.00-2.19 D
1.50-1.99 E
Less than 1.49 F

The council’s overall grade is the average of the council’s scores for the 10 questions, converted into a grade as shown above.

Qualification for Inclusion

Only councils that received 10 or more responses will qualify for consideration as ‘top council’. This meant that 21 of the 85 councils were excluded from the ranking.

ENDS

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