This paper has been prepared in response to a remit put forward at the 2019 LGNZ AGM, and in light of the current Review into the Future for Local Government. It examines the reasons why local authorities have been excluded from being supported to be social housing providers, and why they have found it so...

While the recent New Zealand local authority elections attracted their fair share of media headlines, the dominant narrative, as in previous elections, was one of declining turnout and whether or not local government has a future. Little was heard about the nature of the role councils play in their towns, cities and regions, or about...

Editorial note: Local government in New Zealand exists within a fairly well-defined narrative. New Zealand is the most centralised nation within the OECD. Central government is by far the dominant partner in the central-local relationship and recent innovations in local government have tended towards further centralisation, such as the amalgamation into Auckland’s Super-City. While there...

Decentralisation continues to be well received as a strategy for improving the governance of countries and delivering more responsive and efficient services. Cheerleaders include multilateral agencies like the World Bank and developed countries, like England, which seek to reverse years of centralisation. Evaluating the effectiveness of decentralised models raises the question of what it means...