Working together for good decision making

As part of this level of this Level of Service we will:

• 32.1: Raise community awareness of Council’s role and work and actively promote and enable opportunities for participation.
• 32.2: Increase engagement with young people across Canterbury to lift awareness and understanding of the work of the regional council (target for 2023/24: Provide support for an additional 10 Enviroschools).
• 32.3: Support the Environment Canterbury Youth Rōpū to engage with young people through events and activities across the region.
• 32.4: Enable community organisations to actively contribute to Council’s community outcomes.

How are we doing: Our work includes Te Kōrari | People's Panel and our Youth Rōpū, both of which contribute to maintaining or increasing levels of awareness on how to have a say. In addition, Councillors attend a wide range of events across the region, raising awareness of the work of Council. An independent survey of a random sample of community members will be carried out later in the year.

For Enviroschools, one new school joined the programme in quarter two (three new schools joined in quarter one). This is our first Enviroschool in Kaikōura and Kaikōura District Council has now come on board as a funding partner.

The Waitaha Action to Impact Fund was established in 2021 as a contestable fund specifically for community-based organisations to support community action and engagement. For 2023/24, $350k was made available for the fund. Applications were accepted from mid-July to mid-September. 

Thirty-four new applications were received from across the region requesting approximately $650,000. Twenty-three groups have been allocated funding for 2023/24. Twelve of these are multiyear allocations made in previous years and 11 are new projects. This target has been achieved.

Find out more about allocations of the Waitaha Action to Impact Fund.

To achieve this Level of Service we will:

33.1: Support the Canterbury Mayoral Forum to operate efficiently and effectively in the interests of Canterbury.

How are we doing: The Canterbury Local Authorities’ Triennial Agreement 2022-2025 was approved by all councils by 1 March 2023. We provide secretariat support to the Canterbury Mayoral, Chief Executives, Corporate, Operations, Policy, Economic Development and Communications and Engagement Forums to enable their efficient and effective operation.

To achieve this Level of Service we will:

• 39.1: Update and publish state of the environment information throughout the year on water and land, air quality, biodiversity/ecosystem health, and coastal environment.
• 39.2: Implement data governance procedures to curate and share our data.
• 39.3: Explore and develop innovative data services, including through partnership arrangements.
• 39.4: Maintain and enhance access to Environment Canterbury data, and facilitate sharing and use of data, publicly available mātauranga Māori, and citizen science.

How are we doing: Places we share data and information include our website, Canterbury Maps, and Land, Water, Air Aotearoa (LAWA). We saw a further uplift in the number of users of Canterbury Maps from 300,000 users in 2021/22 to over 325,000 users in 2022/23. 

As part of our integrated planning work programme to review the Regional Policy Statement and parts of the Land and Water Regional Plan (and implement the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2020), we have developed and published new information on our website in the section ‘what we know’. This showcases what we know about the resource management issues currently affecting the Canterbury/Waitaha region and its people. With enhanced functionality for users, these web pages include navigation to interactive maps and current state of environment statistics, together with explanatory text, photos, and infographics.

To explain more about our environmental monitoring programmes, we use an interactive storymap.  

To achieve this Level of Service we will:

• 40.1: Ensure Council and Committee meeting dates, locations and agendas are publicly available at least two working days before the meeting.
• 40.2: Respond to official information requests within statutory timeframes.

How are we doing: Information about Council and Committee meetings can be found on our website.

For the period 1 July – 31 December 2023, we received 110 official information requests. All were responded to within the statutory timeframe.

How are we doing: Five submissions were completed in quarter two: Ministry for the Environment and Ministry for Primary Industries’ consultation on managing the use and development of highly productive land (HPL); Environment Select Committee Inquiry into Climate Adaptation; Governance and Administration Select Committee consultation on the Emergency Management Bill; Ministry for the Environment and Department of Conservation consultation on Biodiversity Credits system; Ministry for the Environment consultation on National Direction for Natural Hazards Decision making.

An overview of the submissions to Central Government over the period September 2022 to November 2023 was provided to the Regional Leadership, Climate and Community Resilience Committee on 15 November 2023.

Read our submissions to Government.

How are we doing: In quarter one, we asked people about their vision for water, what we should prioritise and the outcomes we need to work towards achieving together. Community engagement was open from 3 July to 27 August, with 347 groups or individuals providing feedback through a survey, webinars and in-person events. Feedback was discussed by Te Rōpū Tuia at a wānanga on 14 September. The feedback was used to inform development of the next public campaign, launched in October 2023.

Community and stakeholder engagement under the campaign theme Pick a Path, ran from 21 October to 3 December 2023. Throughout the campaign period, 413 surveys were completed. In addition, 224 people attended day-long stakeholder summits, and 28 people logged on to online webinars. Staff attended nine community events and interacted with more than 900 people.  

The feedback we gather will support multiple programmes of work, including the review of the Canterbury Regional Policy Statement, development of climate action plans, regional transport plans and the Regional Braided River Revival Strategy.

How are we doing: Every local authority is required to undertake a representation review at least once every six years. The next one is required before the 2025 local body election.

The 16 August 2023 council meeting resolved to retain the first past the post-voting system. A public notice advised electors of their right to demand a poll on the future electoral system for the next two triennial elections.

There was no demand for a poll from electors before the deadline about the first past the post (FPP) voting system, so FPP is now confirmed for the 2025 election.

At the 22 November Council meeting, Council resolved not to include a Māori constituency in the next local elections in 2025.

March 2024 was the earliest date for Council to resolve an initial representation review proposal.