Future for Local Government Review

The Review was led by an independent panel. The panel published a draft report in October 2022 He mata whāriki, he matawhānui, which posed key questions and 29 draft recommendations to provoke discussion about how New Zealand’s local government system could be transformed to maximise community wellbeing.

In early 2022, Local Government New Zealand (Ko Tātou) ran workshops and engaged in kōrero with councils gathering a broad range of perspectives. As a result, LGNZ developed the 'Vision for the Future' paper for the Review Panel. It outlined the barriers that so far have stopped councils from achieving their vision and provides a series of recommendations for the Panel’s consideration about how these challenges might be addressed to make the sector’s vision a reality. Read the paper here: Vision for the Future.

Submissions and feedback for the draft report closed on 28 February 2023. The final Report was published on 20 June 2023. The final report, He piki tūranga, he piki kōtuku, proposes 17 recommendations that aim to enable local government to better serve communities across Aotearoa New Zealand.