Background

Council’s role includes acting as the voice of local people. That voice should represent all people who use and/or contribute to the facilities and services provided by Council. It must be able to represent and balance differing interests. And because Council’s democratic system is funded by rates, it’s important the community feels their interests are represented fairly and effectively.

In order to ensure councils continue to provide fair and effective representation for individuals and communities, they’re required by law (the Local Electoral Act 2001), to review their elected representation arrangements at least every six years. You can read more about this process on the Local Government Commission website.

Our last review was in 2015, so we’re checking in with our community again in 2021. Once final, the updated representation arrangements will stay in effect for six years (two election cycles) or until the next review.

In the first half of 2021, we worked with an independent research company engaging people from our community to get in-depth qualitative information on what they think about their representation. We provided this information to councillors as a document, Community Voice, to help them put together an initial proposal. That initial proposal will go to full public consultation on 1 September 2021.

To learn more about the Representation review, including the process, current information on the number of councillors and community boards including how they are elected and the total cost of the representation visit our website.