Community outcome processes as a forum for community governance

Abstract

Research for this report is part of a project on evaluating the quality of planning and governance under the Local Government Act 2002 (LGA). It is in turn part of a much larger on-going programme of FRST-funded research into the quality of planning and governance in New Zealand local government called Planning Under Cooperative Mandates (PUCM). PUCM has evolved through four phases since 1995. Phases 1 to 3 focused on planning under the 1991 Resource Management Act (RMA); Phase 4 on planning and governance under the 2002 Local Government Act (LGA). This is the first of two complementary reports dealing with Phase 4 objective one: to develop and test a methodology for evaluating the LGA community outcomes processes and the related monitoring and reporting frameworks and apply it to selected councils. This report focuses on interrogation of community outcome processes facilitated by local authorities as a forum for community governance. Out of this study a generic framework for deliberative engagement has been developed.