Wasteful spending of public money on unnecessary policy review?
Today, we have sent the following email to the Mayor, Chief Executive and all Councillors of the Tasman District Council.
Subject: Notice regards council resolution on report RCN25-03-1
Dear Council,
This is to put the Council formally on notice of the high likeliness of statutory breaches in regards to the resolution passed on 20 March 2025 during the public part of the Full Council meeting in respect of report RCN25-03-1. Tasman Democracy Inc. requests this notice to be given honest consideration by the Council under urgency as the consultation period is set to start on 24 March 2025 following the resolution from 20 March 2025.
We respectfully invite the Council to consider the recent Court of Appeal decision THORNDON QUAY COLLECTIVE INC V WELLINGTON CITY COUNCIL [2024] NZCA 316 in your objective assessment of this notice. This Court of Appeal decision deals comprehensively with a council's obligations in respect of making decisions, particularly referring to sections 75-81 Local Government Act 2002.
With the above-mentioned resolution in place, the Council risks to be legally challenged of breaching its statutory duties regarding prudent spending of public money. Instead, undertaking an unnecessary consultation process could be considered reckless wasteful spending.
Report RCN25-03-1 makes it clear that the proposed policy review is not necessary, because the policy was already reviewed last year and the Council concluded that the existing policy was fit for purpose. No information was provided in the report that this understanding has changed. In conclusion, the existing policy still needs to be considered fit for purpose not necessitating a review at this point. The report lacks significant information to enable elected members to make an informed decision why there should be spending of public money on a consultation process for an unnecessary policy review.
Elected members were not made aware by staff of Council of the estimated costs of the proposed consultation process and where the funding for this process comes from, including if it would be a budgeted or unbudgeted expense. The report outlines a proposed policy change that would result in reduced revenue for the Council. However, no estimate is provided of how much this reduced revenue would be.
This needs to be seen in the light of report RFNAU25-03-1 presented to the Audit and Risk Committee on 20 March 2025, in which staff “highlights that the financial strategic risk has escalated from High to Very High”. Further, just a few days prior to that, S&P Global Ratings has downgraded the credit rating of the Tasman District Council. Further, in the last Motueka Community Board meeting 18 March 2025 reduced services were announced due to financial pressures.
The report further mentions two aspects that suggest it would be reasonable to have no policy review at this point in time.
a) The anticipated Plan Change 81 of the Tasman Resource Management Plan would make it necessary to review the policy once this plan change is legally effective.
b) On 28 February 2025 the Government announced that development contributions will be replaced by a new development levy system, making the policy obsolete.
In conclusion, there is no reasonable costs and benefit analysis provided that would satisfy section 82(4)(e) Local Government Act 2002 in respect of the proposed consultation process and consequently no financially prudent and fully informed decision could have been made by elected members. Any possible information provided to elected members in confidential workshops has no relevance for the resolution as those workshops are not considered meetings for the purpose of LGOIMA.
We conclude that the resolution based on the above-mentioned report needs to be revoked immediately. The delegation provided to staff, namely to disclose all relevant facts to elected members so that the Council can make an informed decision, was not properly discharged. As a consequence the governing body may have been misled to make a decision contrary to when all relevant information would have been made available by staff, risking unjustified, wasteful spending in a council which is already under significant financial pressure.
We request from the Council to consider this notice under urgency to avoid wasteful spending for this project due to what Tasman Democracy considers to be clear and incurable defects in respect of the current resolution. We consider it prudent and reasonable to immediately stop the project, revoke the resolution, delay a further policy review so that it sits within a statutory timeframe for “necessity”, review and amend the report so that it meets the requirements of the Local Government Act 2002 for making decisions.
Please be advised that failure to consider this notice and failure to provide a timely response and continuing the proposes consultation process will be considered reckless conduct.
Kind regards