Council decisions
Governance delegations
Council’s two new committees – Community and District Development and Infrastructure and Environment – will have full decision-making powers.
Elected members have today adopted the delegations for Council and its committees for the 2022-2025 term confirming the decision-making abilities of each committee, including the two new main committees.
These two committees will have the ability to make final decisions rather than having recommendatory powers only, as was the case with the previous Strategy, Policy and Finance and Operations and Monitoring committees. Under that structure these committees made recommendations to the Council for final consideration and decision-making.
Council itself will deal with matters that cannot be delegated to committees such as striking of the rates, corporate planning like annual plans and code of conduct matters.
Mayor Tania Tapsell said the change in delegations for the main committees aimed to improve, speed up and streamline decision-making, noting the focus areas for the two new committees were aligned to the priorities set by Council – housing, infrastructure, economy and community.
Along with the delegations for the two main committees, Council also adopted the delegations for the District Licensing Committee, the Audit and Risk Committee, the Rotorua Lakes Community Board and the Rotorua Rural Community Board.
Go to p25 of the meeting agenda to view the full report on this matter. The report includes the full delegations for each of the committees.
Council representation on other entities 2022- 2025
Council has confirmed representation of members on other entities such as sub-committees, boards and trusts.
These include working parties, regional (Bay of Plenty) committees, iwi/hapu protocol committees.
Additional to the proposed appointments put to Council today, Cr Lani Kereopa was added as the second representative on the Bay of Plenty Regional Council’s Rotorua Geothermal Liaison Group.
Go to p21 of the meeting agenda to view the full report on this matter which includes appointments confirmed today.
Meetings schedule set
Council adopted its schedule of committee and Council meetings for 1 March 2023 to 31 December 2023.
The schedule is a continuation of the schedule of meetings adopted at the end of last year with changes to March meetings to coincide with the 2023/24 Annual Plan timeline.
Go to p14 of the meeting agenda to view the report on this matter and to view the meetings schedule, which is on p17.
Additional Responsibilities Remuneration 2022-2023
Council has today adopted the recommended remuneration for councillors’ base salaries and remuneration for positions with additional responsibilities.
The pool of funding for each Council is determined by the Remuneration Authority and is required, as per the authority’s determination, to be allocated in full. The pool is funded via general rates.
Remuneration for mayors and community board members are dealt with separately by the Remuneration Authority.
The base salary for councillors has been set at $65,000 for 2022-2023.
Committee chairs and deputy chairs will received additional remuneration on top of their base salaries.
Council adopted its 2022-2025 committee structure in December and has identified roles for the deputy mayor, chairs and deputy co-chairs.
The report to Council today notes that the mayor and deputy mayor, who are also the interim chairs for the two newly formed main committees, will not receive additional remuneration for that and those who have been appointed co-deputy-chairs will not receive further additional remuneration if later appointed to the position of chair.
The Remuneration Authority, which sets the remuneration and allowances for local government elected members, released its Local Government Members (2022/23) Determination 2022 on 25 August 2022. Remunerations for mayors is set separately by the Authority.
The current model for the determination of councillor remuneration has been in place since the 2019 term following a significant review undertaken by the Authority in 2018. The Authority sets a remuneration “pool” for each local authority based on the size of the governance roles of each council, the average time required by an elected member on a council of a particular size and a general comparison with parliamentary salaries.
Affordability and the actual number of councillors is not a consideration in the determination of the pool.
The remuneration pool for councillors of territorial authorities does not apply to mayors and community board members. Their remuneration must be paid according to the provisions set out in the “Local Government Members (2022/23) Determination 2022”.
For Rotorua Lakes Council the councillor base rate is set by the Authority at $59,442. Local authorities are required to set their own minimum base salary and it was recommended that Council set this base rate at $65,000.
When setting the council remuneration, there are four requirements:
1. The whole pool must be used: The Authority understands that in any community, there will be pressure to keep rates down by paying councillors less and the Authority considers that it is important that councils be protected from this pressure. Consequently, the pool for each council is required to be fully allocated. Rotorua Lakes Council’s allocated pool for 2022/2023 is $858,787).
2. The council must decide a base remuneration for councillors: The Authority has set a minimum base rate of $59,442. It is recommended that council adopt a base councillor rate of $65,000.
3. Remuneration above the base rate/additional responsibilities: Any role with additional remuneration above the base rate will require council to have a formal vote and must include a title and short description of each role, the proposed annual dollar value of the remuneration attached to the role and the name of the councillor.
Cr Conan O’Brien asked that his vote against the recommendation to adopt the proposed remuneration for councillors be noted.
Go to p43 of the meeting agenda to view the report on this matter.
Submissions policy
Council has adopted a Submissions Policy which provides guidelines for people submitting feedback on matters put out for consultation.
The aim of the policy is to provide guidelines for the public and to ensure the community is not subjected to inappropriate submissions that then become a public record, elected members were told today.
The policy deals with minimum requirements for submissions to be considered, acceptable submissions methods, formats and languages, the option to be heard and conditions relating to content to prevent the dissemination, by way of council publishing submissions, of content that is offensive, derogatory, discriminatory, threatening or abusive.
The policy provides a tool to “filter” such content, which has been increasing in volume, the Council was told.
Council chief executive Geoff Williams said the policy also protects the council from potential libel in the case of content that could be defamatory and the section relating to content conditions deals with “execptions” rather than the rule.
This type of content would in future be redacted when published on council channels if submitters decline a request to re-word their submissions.
Other councils also have submissions policies and the policy adopted today has been reviewed by a solicitor.
Councillors Don Paterson, Conan O’Brien and Robert Lee voted against and asked that their votes against be recorded.
The policy was adopted with one alteration – in the Submission content conditions section which sets out the type of content council reserves the right to remove, “Frivolous or vexatious” has been replaced with “Irrelevant to core consultation”.
Councillors Robert Lee, Conan O'Brien and Don Paterson voted against adopting the submissions policy.
Go to p54 of the meeting agenda to view the full report on this matter, including to view a copy of the now adopted policy, noting the amendment above.
Annual Plan 2023/24 timeline
Council has adopted the timeline for preparation and adoption of the 2023/24 Annual Plan.
The 2023/24 year will be Year 3 of the current Long-term Plan (2021-31).
Elected members will have two or three forums this month and next to provide direction for the development of a consultation document for Council’s approval in April. That will be followed by four weeks of consultation with the annual plan needing to be adopted by the end of June.
It was noted that the timeline was “tight” but that there was not a lot of room for alteration.
Adoption of the timeline for the annual plan follows Council determining its priorities.
Elected members were told today that given the new priorities there could be matters Council wishes to get community feedback about and staff will work closely with them to ensure the consultation document accurately conveys any such matters.
A draft consultation document will go before Council on 5 April 2023 for approval to then go out to consultation between 11 April and 12 May.
Go to p21 of the meeting agenda to view the full report on this matter.
To view presentation slides related to this matter see THIS LINK .
Code of conduct
Council has voted against adopting a proposed Code of Conduct 2022-2025 today after several councillors raised concerns about aspects relating to proposed complaints processes.
Further work will be done with the elected members before the matter comes back before Council for consideration.
All local authorities are required under the Local Government Act 2002 to adopt a code of conduct so the existing code, adopted by the previous Council in 2019, will apply in the meantime.
The objective of a code of conduct is to enhance the effectiveness of the Council, setting boundaries and standards of behaviour and providing a means of resolving situations in the case of breaches of those standards.
The code applies to all elected members in their dealings with one another, the council chief executive and staff, the media and the general public and complements other corporate documents such as Standing Orders and the council’s Governance Statement.
At today’s meeting elected members were taken through the requirements, principles, policy development and processes related to the code of conduct.
The proposed code was peer reviewed by an expert in local government matters, consultant Mark Abbott, who attended today’s meeting via Zoom.
Following discussion on the matter Mayor Tania Tapsell explained adopting a code of conduct required 75 per cent agreement, rather than just a majority, and as several had councillors indicated they would vote against, it was clear that threshold would not be reached.
She said councillors therefore had two options, adopt the first part of the code which relates to principles, roles, relationships and behaviours and was not of concern and undertake some more work on the remaining parts or not adopt a code in which case the current code would apply.
The vote went against a motion to adopt just the first part of the code and a further vote to adopt the proposed code was also lost.
Go to p18 of the meeting agenda to view the full report on this matter.
You can view the presentation slides relating to this matter HERE.
You can view the proposed Code of Conduct HERE on Council’s website.