Dear ZL Wong

 

Thank you for your query regarding the link to the local board standing
orders on Auckland Council's About Local Boards webpage. The link you have
referenced is to the initial standing orders developed for all local
boards by the Auckland Transition Agency in 2010. This is not the current
set of standing orders. Local boards last reviewed and adopted their own
individual sets of standing orders in 2017/8.

 

The most recent set of all individual local boards standing orders is also
on the Auckland Council website and can be found by following the link to
Speak at Local Board Meetings from the following link:

[1]https://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/abou...

 

We apologise that the About Local Boards webpage link you opened took you
to the earlier set of standing orders, and will replace this link with a
link to the current sets.

 

Changes to standing orders

 

The changes following the review of standing orders include a simplified
layout written in a plain language style, and the addition of a summary
and process diagram at the front for ease of reference during a meeting.
In general, the more substantive changes include new provisions to:

o allow electronic attendance at meetings to reflect a legislation
change that enables this
o deal with conflicts due to the non-financial interests of members
o enable more permissive processes for governing body and Māori input at
meetings
o enable use of New Zealand Sign Language at meetings.

 

There were also a number of other changes to assist with the smooth
running of meetings or to provide clarification and/or consistency with
the governing body standing orders, including:

o extending the waiting time for quorums
o circulating the record of workshop proceedings and removing the need
for the chairperson to sign-off the record of a workshop
o clarifying where the non-disclosure of information at confidential
meetings does not apply
o clarifying what meeting minutes are to record
o clarifying that agendas can be sent electronically and that names of
local board and committee members are to be on agendas
o amending the Notice of Motion provisions so the chairperson may refuse
a Notice of Motion that the local board or committee has considered
twice in the previous six months
o providing discretion for the chairperson to allow procedural motions
that are not in the standing orders
o clarifying the types of issues that fall under extraordinary business
and better reflecting the purpose of the extraordinary business
provision
o clarifying that the order of business for an extraordinary meeting
should be limited to items relevant to the meeting's purpose
o removing references to working parties and briefings as these forums
are less formal and don't require standing orders
o clarifying some public forum provisions
o enabling members to propose suspending standing orders during part of
a meeting (where this would not breach legislation)
o providing that a Notice of Motion must be signed by another member
(unless notice is to revoke or alter a previous resolution)
o clarifying the discretion of the chairperson provisions
o clarifying the meaning of 'clear working days'
o clarifying the governing body input, Māori input, public forum and
deputations’ provisions
o adding new appendices setting out who must leave the meeting when the
public is excluded, and how business is brought before a meeting
o moving the workshop provisions to an appendix
o adding a clause to reflect legislation that requires the Independent
Māori Statutory Board to appoint a maximum of two people to sit as
members of committees that deal with the management and stewardship of
natural and physical resources
o clarifying powers of delegation.

 

Local boards do not have to adopt the same set of standing orders and not
all have adopted all of the above changes, so there is a small number of
variations between local boards. If you would like to understand more
about the changes for a specific local board, please let me know.

 

No breach of legislation or policy

 

In terms of your questions around whether any laws or policies were
breached by the link to the earlier set of standing orders, whilst
councils are required to have an adopted set of standing orders for the
conduct of its meetings, they are not expressly required to make these
publicly available or available on their website. Auckland Council
considers it helpful to provide standing orders on their website however,
and has endeavoured to do so. As noted above, the Speak at Local Board
Meetings page links to the current sets, and we will ensure that About
Local Boards page does too.

 

As an aside, councils must make publicly available a local governance
statement that include information on, amongst other things, meeting
processes (with specific references to standing orders, though not the
standing orders themselves). Auckland Council's local governance statement
is on its website and includes a link to the webpage that takes users
through to the current local board standing orders (the same page as the
link above). The link to the local governance statement is copied below:

[2]https://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/abou...

 

Queries regarding the out of date link

 

You also asked if there have been any other queries raised about the link
to the standing orders on the About Local Boards webpage being out of date
in the last 12 months. I am not aware of any queries of this nature, and
whilst it is possible there are other queries, it is likely they would
have come to me to respond to.

 

Thank you for alerting us to the out of date link on one of webpages, and
please let me know if you need any further information.

 

Kind regards

Anna Bray, Policy and Planning Manager - Local Boards

 

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