With Auckland Transport’s future up in the air under Mayor Wayne Brown’s proposed CCO reform, we’ve dug way back into the archives, to unearth this post originally published in March 2010.
As you’ll see, many of the debates that were being had when AT was first proposed continue to resonate nearly 15 years later…
It has been a particularly interesting last few days for the plans going on to create the Auckland Super-City in November this year [2010]. In particular, it has been interesting to see the New Zealand Herald become more and more opposed to the “council controlled organisations” (CCOs) that will be set up to run water, development of the waterfront and (most controversially) transport.
First, there was Friday’s editorial, which included (among other comment) this:
The way it is shaping up, the single mayor and council will be a puppet show, purely for democratic appearances, while the real decisions are made by people the public has not elected and will never see. It cannot stand.
Now it seems that there’s a whole campaign within the Herald to expose exactly how unaccountable this new transport agency will be. In today’s paper there was a whole number of different articles on CCOs. Splashed across the front page of today’s newspaper were the words “The Lockout of Auckland“, and while the main article focused on the Waterfront Development Agency (transport will have its big article tomorrow), there is still mention of transport matters:
Aucklanders are to be locked out of decisions affecting their greatest jewels – including the waterfront – as well as important transport issues, including road congestion.
The two heavyweight contenders to be the first mayor of the Super City, John Banks and Len Brown, and an increasing number of other politicians and community leaders are aghast at a plan to set up agencies which will be virtually unanswerable to the public.
Auckland Chamber of Commerce chief executive Michael Barnett said the Government risked handing Aucklanders a lemon with its vaguely drafted plans for seven “council-controlled organisations” (CCOs).
The proposed organisations – run by directors appointed by the Government with no input from local leaders – will be responsible for at least 75 per cent of services in the new Super City.
There are particular concerns about the CCOs being set up to look after transport and a huge swathe of the waterfront.
Columnist Brian Rudman did an excellent piece (save the first few paragraphs which were not much more than a nasty swipe at ARC chairman Mike Lee) on the CCOs as well, making these comments on Auckland Transport:
As critics argue, the big issue is lack of accountability.
The British colonists in America in the mid-18th century coined the catchcry “no taxation without representation” to protest at their lack of representation in the British Parliament that levied taxes over them, and this is one of the major objections to the new governance structure. As Mr Lee told the local government parliamentary select committee, “The transport agency will be spending over 50 per cent of the Auckland Council’s rates revenue, $1.3 billion of Aucklanders’ money, yet the arrangements proposed do not make it accountable to the public for the expenditure of that money, and nor do they make it accountable to the Auckland Council.”
Another critic claims more than 75 per cent of council services will be in the hands of these arms-length entities. Which raises the question, what will be left for the mayor and councillors – and the 19 community boards and their members – to do.
I have a sneaking suspicion that about halfway through the Super City process, central government got very very worried about the power of the agency they were creating, and have been trying to dampen things down ever since, with the CCOs being the primary way of doing this.
Another article briefly outlines Auckland Transport, in none-too-complimentary fashion:
This mega-CCO will be responsible, but not directly accountable, to ratepayers for spending more than half of their rates – about $650 million – on everything from major roading projects to public transport services to fixing broken footpaths. It will not handle state highways or railways.
Transport Minister Steven Joyce pushed the idea through the Cabinet against the advice of Treasury and other Government departments. Mayors, councillors and community boards say transport is too much part of political life in Auckland to leave to a handful of business types.
If one wonders why Steven Joyce would ignore so many government departments to create Auckland Transport, I don’t think you need to look too much further than the debates between the government and the ARC over Auckland transport priorities throughout last year. This was Joyce’s ultimate revenge on the ARC in my opinion.
A fourth article (yes that’s right, fourth!) has this to say about CCOs in general:
CCOs are not transparent and accountable to ratepayers in the way councils are. They do not have to release agendas or minutes of their meetings, which take place behind closed doors. They are, however, subject to the Official Information Act.
Until the Super City came along, councils decided what services would by run by CCOs following public consultation.
The Government has unilaterally decided on three CCOs for the Super City – transport, water and waterfront development. Four others have been proposed – council investments; economic development, tourism and events; major regional facilities and property holdings.
With the promise of more articles tomorrow, taking a particular focus on Auckland Transport, it will be interesting to see if there is any response from the government. I do think that surely some steps will be taken to respond to these criticisms – and to me the question really is whether the Auckland Transport CCO can be fixed or whether it needs to be done away with altogether, with transport matters being subsumed back into the Auckland Council.
Related posts from March 2010
NZ Herald on CCOs, 14 March 2010
Reflecting on the Auckland Transport CCO, 23 March 2010
Where should the Auckland Transport CCO be based?, 26 March 2010
Flash forward to 2024: this is what Mayor Wayne Brown is proposing, pending options on governance reform:
Auckland Transport, unlike the other CCOs, is a statutory body. Any structural changes to AT will require legislation.
In August 2023, the Transport and Infrastructure Committee of the Governing Body gave Mayor Brown a mandate to advocate for legislative changes that will restore democratic control of Auckland’s transport system.
“I have made significant progress in my discussions with central government since then,” Mayor Brown said.
Last week, the Minister for Local Government and Transport, Hon. Simeon Brown, confirmed that the Cabinet has authorised him to work with the mayor on options for transport governance reform.
“The minister and I agree that Aucklanders should be empowered, through their elected mayor and councillors, to make key decisions about the region’s transport system. I will have more to say on that in due course,” Mayor Brown said.
In the interim, Mayor Brown is proposing to take immediate steps to begin the process of taking back control from AT. These measures include a proposal for Auckland Council to assume control of AT’s back-office functions.
“As funder and shareholder, Auckland Council has the right to put conditions on our funding. I have proposed that we get advice on how we can make operational funding of AT’s back-office functions conditional on Auckland Council providing those services,” Mayor Brown said.
These functions will include communications and marketing, legal and finance services. AT will also be mandated to participate in the council’s Group Shared Services programme for information technology, human resources and payroll.
“I have also proposed that Auckland Council take responsibility for all regulatory, policy and strategic planning functions for which AT does not have a statutory role. This includes rules around street trading, as well as the Harbourmaster function,” Mayor Brown said.
[…]
The Draft Mayoral Proposal document is available on the Auckland Council website.
Read frequently asked questions on CCO Reform here.
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Having worked in high level strategic/policy roles in Auckland I have routinely seen AT engaging expensive consultants and legal teams in opposition to AC in plan changes, nors etc, often on matters that could and should have been sorted out internally, or in some cases were nothing to do with their role, so I support a reduction in the scope of ATs mandate.
I just worry that any re-org of transport in Auckland where Simeon Brown has a strong hand in will somehow make it more hostile to anything except in cars, and even more beholden to Wellington decisions.
For the safe and thriving future we deserve, we need a transformed transport system. This won’t be delivered, whatever the structure of our local government, unless Council figures out why they have laboured so painfully over their own systems changes – and then rapidly puts in place a totally new culture at management level.
If Wayne Brown wanted to improve AT he shouldn’t have scared off the experienced CEO applicant when he first came to office. Following that mistake with his own “Vanity Austerity” directions sealed AT’s fate.
This post from June 2010 is also interesting.
https://greaterauckland.org.nz/2010/06/10/bring-on-the-auckland-transport-cco/
I have always opposed the governance structure of AT which is a bespoke arrangement unique to the Auckland Region. Every other region (including a few with Unitary authorities like Auckland) have a Regional Land Transport Committee consisting mainly of elected members, though they may co-opt others representing relevant interests. Up until 2010 the old Auckland RLTC included (I think) 11 elected members from the ARC and constituent Councils plus half-a-dozen representatives of relevant interests (PT and freight operators, walkers and cyclists, the disabled, etc.), and Transit NZ. The key task of the RLTC was to set up the Regional Land Transport Strategy, reviewed every 3 years with public consultation. This system still applies elsewhere , but since 2010 the Auckland RLTs has been dealt with internally by the AT Board. So rather than Mayor Brown cooking up his own tailor-made solution, let’s have AT relegated to a delivery or “doing” organisation with the policy-making side under an accountable RLTC as for every other part of NZ. No need to create a new law – the existing legislation has been in place for decades.
“plus half-a-dozen representatives of relevant interests (PT and freight operators, walkers and cyclists, the disabled, etc.), ”
I may be wrong – I’d only joined cycling advocacy around 2008 – but I am pretty sure that the Regional Land Transport Committee didn’t actually include any representatives like that, certainly not for cycling. They did listen to presentations we have etc, sure. But I don’t think there was anything formal like that.
PS: Bring on Council control. I have plenty of beef with political decisions on transport, but at least there’s a level of accountability. Right now, we have the worst of both worlds, rather than the promised independence and technocratic, unbiased decision making. And both sides can point at the divide to wash their hands of things that don’t work out.
I think you’re right, Graeme. However, prior to the supercity, this structure was not delivering, either. While the idea of “best practice” wasn’t as scoffed at by staff as it is currently by those in power in AT, nor was it actually followed. Same goes in the other local governments around NZ.
What improvements to the standard governance structure do you think are needed, to support evidence-based delivery of a safe and sustainable transport system?
‘ best practice’ should be treated as that and adhered to as much as possible. Its not just AT that has no respect for it either
The law does need to be changed to put the plan creation and RTC powers back into council, putting it into AT was another one of Steven Joyce’s brainlet ideas in 2013
Dont look now but Simeon and Luxon are coming to the rescue .Then you will regret that you disbanded the set up and the knowledge you now have .It will be gutted and will become unable to acheive anything .
I’m a wee bit concerned re that. Like status quo is far from perfect, but that doesn’t mean this will somehow help.
If anything it’ll let Wellington have a greater say in Auckland, and that’s the one thing Auckland (and NZ) doesn’t need.
Sorry but I think this is very much better the devil you know situation.
We should have always been pushing for AT to live up to its potential as an independent organisation lead by experts determined to produce the best transport outcomes for everyone.
AT sometimes tries to do this but all too often allows itself to be dissuaded from doing what it knows is best by the outcry of the small minded car lobby and the politicians who pander to their votes.
Personally I can think of nothing worse that could be done than to drop an agency of experts and move back to a decision making model where the first and foremost principle at stake on every project is how can this project appeal to the greatest number of voters for the current mayor and councillors. Well actually the wose option is when we are also forced into decisions that help Simpleton Beige get re-elected as Transport Minister.
Keep politics out of transport. There is absolutely no chance that letting the politicians make these decisions will lead to better decisions. Certainly not for safety, active modes and PT.
Another Throwback for you…
At a time in the distant past, in October 1967, when debate raged as to the sense of spending money on a rapid transit system, the Chairman of the Auckland Regional Authority, (remember the ARA?) Hugh Lambie, commented on parts of a review of Auckland’s passenger transport system:
“The need for decision making: I do not mean to over-dramatise the situation. But there is a need in Auckland to emphasize the situation we appear to be facing – a wariness in the face of a real need for decision making on matters which are vital to the future – a hesitation to accept the responsibility for decision making on matters which will be more vital to the people of the future than to us.
“There comes a time – in business, in industry, in private affairs and in public affairs – when having examined a situation, a decision has to be made – a decision demanding some degree of courage as well as judgment. It is inconceivable that we should sit back recognising that growth will take place, that public passenger transport services will be essential and, at same time, allow the existing services to run down, deteriorate and lose passengers against an estimated increasing deficit…
“…we have to make the decisions we are concerned with ourselves, that we have to get the decisions other people are concerned with, and then we have to get the job done.”
Nearly sixty years later, Auckland continues to struggle with the decision-making process for “…the people of the future”.
All that has to be decided now –– again –– is who is to decide…?
“These functions will include communications and marketing, legal and finance services. AT will also be mandated to participate in the council’s Group Shared Services programme for information technology, human resources and payroll.”
Good luck trying to roll AT’s IT Department ( known as Business Technology ) into the IT Dept at Auckland Council. AT was still using ‘Agile’ software methodology to try to solve business problems.
see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKTwsl7oD7U&t=92s
The AT brand for PT should stay it’s simple and easy to understand. RCA should be given a name maybe Auckland roads authority. The politics should come back into it so we can make decisions based on what people actually want. AT forging ahead with unpopular speed reductions “because they can” has not worked out well and has caused people to vote to get nationwide speed limit reductions rejected. AT always seemed to have their mind made up which isn’t acceptable in a democracy whether they were improving bus services or slashing speed limits or installing vertical impact devices the public deserve to have a say and actually be listened to no matter how insane the decision may seem to some. They should be allowed to provide evidence but if people decide they don’t care don’t force decisions on them they don’t want and we will have come a long way to improving public trust in our agency’s.
“The AT brand for PT should stay it’s simple and easy to understand’
Some research that AT undertook showed that MAXX ( the previous brand for the train and bus network ) had a stronger brand awareness and brand recall than AT Metro, which was reinforced by old MAXX branding still being visible around the network. AT Metro was dropped in place of “AT” as it gave potential customers the impression that Auckland was about to build a huge underground train system. Even one of AT’s ad agencies were confused by AT Metro. If AT is to be sliced up, there will be several branding agencies who will pop up and start to propose that AT is rebranded, as a way to “reinvigorate and re-focus the organisation” translation: The design process alone will cost $1 million, not including the production and installation of new signage.
If the mayor and the transport minister agree change is needed to meet the needs of Aucklanders, you know what that’s code for eh?!The whole Mayoral budget draft proposal is just a mumbo jumbo way of saying “more of what I think is important” and less of what Aucklanders have repeatedly said they want. You won’t find the word “climate” in there. Yes, strip out some functions from AT to remove its ability to block progress but much of the reform agenda is very unclear, and worryingly so.
That’s the reality. The people you elect then set the city’s policies, and we don’t always agree with them. So yeah, the current politicians may create policies you or me don’t like.
But right now, we have had *years* of elected politicians, many of them at least, making policies that I did very much like on transport and climate. And AT, as CCO, has ignored that direction, and said, essentially, you don’t actually control that. We have other priorities which are more important.
And that’s not right. Let alone “Council-controlled”.
So while I am totally aware that this won’t always lead to great outcomes, pulling transport back into elected Council’s remit, in my view, is both a better outcome and a more democratic one.
You could be right indeed, the democracy aspect in itself may tip the balance in this argument.
Not sure on the best move for this one, if they make AT more an electable entity it could spark interest in votes from quarters we don’t expect. A bit unknown.
It is sad but not surprising to see that the nay-sayers back in 2010 have ended up getting it right about AT (even the Herald!).
In theory, it should have been a good thing to remove political meddling from transport delivery. But time and time again, people in key roles at AT have been just as political and played it both ways – using the CCO model to deliver when it has suited an internal agenda, but hiding behind “politics” to justify no end of predatory delay.
AT has of course accomplished some major and positive changes to the landscape – public transport is growing; there are glimmers of the bike network, safer crossings and calming of speeds in quite a few neighborhoods, and some exemplary high-profile street makeovers, like Quay St. But these continue to be hard-won exceptions in a sea of business-as-usual that will lock in more traffic and more congestion into the future.
Visionary and tenacious leadership could have grown a confident and collaborative culture of delivering the definitive transformation Auckland needed in the last decade and a half – but without it, whoever sits in the roles of AT Board Chair and CEO routinely find themselves in an impossible situation.
I think the problem started with the “independent” culture the first AT CEO David Warburton established. He had many successes overseeing the amalgamation and delivering projects like the rollout of the New Network. He was also able to delegate once a decision was made, and backed his team. But he was more interested in using AT’s independence to speed up vehicle movements, than following the strategies and plans set by council. He encouraged staff to ignore local board priorities, hid the rising DSI from the Board and was known to have headed to Wellington to undermine the first Mayor Brown. Crucially, no attempt was made to educate and engage staff regarding the key direction-setting documents they should be following, like the Auckland Plan – a pattern that continues to this day (who inside AT fully understands the Auckland Climate Plan, TERP, A4E?).
Shane Ellison started with a lot of promise as CEO. He made safety a priority, and pledged to leverage the massive maintenance and renewals budget to build the bike network and make safety improvements for pedestrians – but he also infamously chose to disband the walking and cycling team, for no obvious reason. He buckled to the small group of loud saboteurs who vandalised work sites and intimidated workers, pausing the Inner West projects in 2018 (these are only now finally underway after massive community mobilisation). Both choices cost AT and the community mightily in budget, time and trust – and undermined any legacy of safety improvements.
The CCO review in 2020 could have been an opportunity for a reset – but unfortunately the recommendations regarding AT didn’t address the fundamental issues, preferring to focus on the importance of “relationships” between council and the AT leadership.
The second Mayor Brown completely blew up the relationship further, weakening AT’s role as a delivery agency. Acting CEO Mark Lambert made the job harder by not backing AT after the election in 2022, stopping projects (like the Inner West again!) and changing direction on the basis of media releases before the new council was even sworn in. He could have made a point of continuing to follow the legislative requirements, by simply noting: “Thanks Mayor, I look forward to receiving the new Letter of Expectation and direction from council.” (but of course he was just doing what he thought the “relationship” required of him to stay on as CEO)
Over the years, there have been so many examples of council and local board transport priorities being undermined by AT, and we can all think of projects that can be described as having happened despite AT. Meanwhile, individuals who are actively working against council’s emission-reduction strategies remain in key roles – despite the growing public support for climate action in these increasingly urgent times.
We weren’t wrong to hope that a dedicated transport agency, supplied with abundantly clear marching orders, could just do the job it was asked to do (I sure tried to make the governance model work over my 12 years on council!).
However, as it stands, there’s diminishing political gain in sticking up for AT as an independent agency. Without that political support, and without leadership pushing AT to live up to its potential, governance reform is inevitable.
Wow, good summary which I think rings true from what I have observed over the years reading the this blog and more.
Regrettably and accurate summary of issues with AT.
I think the main issue that Pippa mentions is that plans and policies are not actively communicated to staff.
There is another issue which is also serious is the active internal sabotage by staff not following management plans, policies and directions.
When I was part of AT, the executive team stood up before a group of new employees and said that they were united in what they wanted but had difficulty with middle management not sharing that vision and in some cases opposing it. As a new employee I thought what is going on. In my work with AT while some teams cooperated with others and adhered to what the directions from the executive, some did not. This caused delay and added costs to projects. In some cases it seemed that it was to evade effective scrutiny of budgets and spending.
OMG Pippa Coom and Graeme Easte’s retro-complaints are too sad.
Auckland Transport have undertaken tasks for Aucklanders that few Auckland politicians could be trusted with. For those that complain about traffic ever-increasing, it is Auckland Council politicians’ fault that Auckland is ever-expanding and forcing more people onto motorways, and making public transport beyond Stage 3 ever-less viable and ever-more expensive. The Auckland Plan in particular drives future car use, and that’s on Auckland Council not Auckland Transport.
AC could quite easily have stuck to the old 1999 Regional Growth Strategy and held the old MUL line intact if they’d wanted. AC instead chose the future Aucklanders are in.
Anyone who thought they could trust Auckland Council local boards to have the courage to back AT’s shared streets, can look only to the disaster of Henderson where the local board folded like origami.
For those who think politicians would be best placed to handle major projects, check out the pig’s ear Auckland Council and government made of light rail, the second harbour crossing, the cycleway over the harbour, and any part of Mangere and surrounding the airport. AC’s deliberate inability to use their shareholdings in Auckland Airport or Port of Auckland to influence growth form is a region-altering loss – now permanently gone. Check out the public transport desert AC have made of Auckland’s north-east and far south through poorly-controlled growth.
Then compare that to the Panmure-Pakuranga-Botany busway, and its likely future stages. No one thinks AC politicians could have led and executed that.
Public transport thanks to integrated ticketing, New Network, and big central subsidies, is pretty much at pre-COVID levels. And they have the most electric buses of anywhere in Australasia. And for the far-flung provinces of west Auckland, buses are far more reliable and occur more often than I’ve seen in my lifetime. Under ARTA and ARC they were rapidly drifting to their death.
Cycling is now massive on the routes into the big SH16 and SH1 parallel routes. AC could not have got that co-designed cooperation from NZTA, but AT did.
AT have delivered far better than AC have, and extracted more funding from central government to do so.
I think with the super city creation though, we wouldn’t of had the same old governance as per the Auckland Regional Council etc. We could of had a more politically accountable version of AT, ie an ARC sub organisation with a transport focus I would of thought. Same with Watercare etc. Just my 10c worth.
Ad, what is shielding you from seeing what we can see in AT’s behaviour? AT have fallen far short of good planning practice in transport. In a reductive transport sector, Council can only resist the sprawlists on the topic of land use planning if they have the $ figures of the impacts of sprawl. This hasn’t been forthcoming; those engineers and planners who do hold positions of power in AT seem to welcome the misinformation that inaccurate applications of the traffic modelling supplies to these investment decisions. This makes it so much harder for progressive politicians to overcome Council’s own “organisational conservatism”.
And it goes deeper than this. The TERP could, and should, be guiding all Capital Expenditure Reviews and Annual Budgets within AT. It doesn’t only because AT has worked very hard to avoid implementing the TERP. They concocted a pathway of delay, and refused to be guided by the TERP in these financial planning exercises.
Meanwhile their sustainability planning has been an exercise in dismembering and hiding the TERP.
Of course AT has done plenty of good things along with the bad, but the general thrust of its planning and budgeting has been dire. AT’s climate planning is always in the future, when it could be happening now.