The Local Governance National Dialogue aims to develop a conversation based around research-informed discussion papers and a series of regional events to consider what type of local governance will best meet the needs of New Zealand’s many different communities over the coming years.

Local governance is of ever increasing importance to the democratic well-being of New Zealand. Emerging trends in New Zealand’s public policy environment, coupled with an increasing differentiation in the impact on New Zealand communities of influences such as demographic change, globalisation, and the growth of metropolitan centres mean that it is timely to have a fresh look at how New Zealand’s communities are governed, what trends are shaping the environment for local governance, and how best to enable ‘fit for purpose’ local governance over the next 10, 20, 30 years. IGPS acknowledges that the need for such a fresh look is already emerging in elements of central government policy development including the social sector trials and on-going work on how government agencies can best work with the communities they serve.

Against that background it is extremely timely to reflect on what the governance needs of New Zealand’s communities and how those are best met. The purpose of this dialogue is to showcase the significance of local governance including the importance of the ‘local’ recognising not just the different conditions of different communities, but the different preferences of the people who choose to live in them.

The dialogue brings together expert researchers, practitioners and stakeholders from central government to the private sector, civil society and tangata whenua through research informed discussion papers and a series of regional discussions to consider what type of local governance will best meet the needs of New Zealand’s many different communities over the next 10, 20, 30 years. At its conclusion, the Institute for Governance and Policy Studies (IGPS) will bring the discussion papers and findings from the National dialogue together in a publication designed to help shape public and governmental understandings of the place of local government in New Zealand’s future.