Section 6: Council Activities

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Introduction to Council Activities

This section provides the detail of the Council’s work plans over the next 10 years. The work plans are grouped into work areas which are called ‘Council activities’. Much of the information in this section is required to be there under the Local Government Act 2002. Each Council activity section, therefore, contains the following information in detail for the first three years of the plan and in outline for the following seven years.

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Responsibility. This tells you which council manager has primary responsibility for the activity.

Description of service. This briefly describes what this activity encompasses, including sub-activities.

Scale of service. This describes the size and scope of the activity, what assets it uses and the average number of activities it performs based on previous service delivery. This is to give a sense of the effort and resources that are applied to the activity, relative to other activities.

Rationale for activity. This is the reason why New Plymouth District Council delivers, or is involved in, this activity. This includes the community well-beings and why the Council and other organisations is delivering, or is involved in, this activity.

Service objectives. This describes the specific objectives of the activity and what it is attempting to achieve.

What are our Community Outcomes?

There are seven Community Outcomes identified by the community.

Connected (Community Outcome)

A district that delivers accessible and integrated infrastructure, transport and communication systems which meet the needs of residents, businesses and visitors (Vision).

C1 Effective, efficient, safe and reliable infrastructure
is provided and maintained (Outcome Statement).

The Community Outcomes are supported by a broad vision which states what the Community Outcomes mean in broad terms, and each in turn are supported by a number of statements which articulate in greater detail what the outcomes mean in practical terms.

These Community Outcomes were formulated at a regional level and the outcome statements reflect our district’s specific Community Outcomes. They are linked to each activity to describe how the services contribute to the Community Outcomes for the district.

Contribution to Community Outcomes. This describes which outcomes the activity contributes to and how, by individual outcome statement.

Negative impacts on Community Outcomes. This describes what unintentional negative impacts the activity has, or risks having, on the community in terms of its social, economic, environmental and cultural well-being. This may also outline what the Council will do to reduce or remove these negative effects.

Facing the challenges - assumptions and risks. In order to plan over the long-term, the Council must collect and analyse data showing those trends and predictions that will have a significant effect on life in the community, as well as demand for the Council’s activities. Such analysis typically involves population, age profile and location movements and the likely state of the economy and environment. These are then fed into the Council’s long-term decision making processes so that the Council can make informed investment decisions for the services it provides to the community.

Risk comes with any forecast because there are always multiple forces shaping our lives. So to ensure that the Council’s planning is robust, an assessment of risks is also made to identify the degree of uncertainty around any of the Council’s assumptions.Return to top

Levels of service/performance measures. Each table of information contains the following:

• Service objective. This describes the specific objectives of the activity and what it is attempting to achieve.
• Related Community Outcome(s). This shows where a service contributes towards a particular Community Outcome.
• Performance measures. This describes the way the service is measured.
• Performance targets. This describes the target being set for the service.
• Baseline. This is the past performance achieved in 2007/08.

Financial plan. The tables provide, in a standard accounting format, what the activity is expected to cost for each year of the plan and how we expect it to be paid for. Year to year running (operating) costs and revenues are separated from physical capital investment costs and revenues. For activities that are made up of distinct and significant sub-activities, we break this down to a sub-activity basis.

Appropriations comprise:

• Capital contributions - revenues provided to pay for capital improvements.
• Depreciation unfunded - we are not asking current ratepayers to cash-fund all the depreciation expense (refer section eight for further details and explanation).
• Transfer to or from reserves - funds the council sets aside for specific purposes.
• Carry forwards - funding for works not completed in the previous financial year.

Asset information. This describes what specific actions the Council will take to ensure the assets, and other organisational capability, are able to supply the forecast level of service, in terms of quantity and quality, over time and how this will be funded. This is to ensure that the level of service is sustainable. It includes the maintenance, renewal and replacement of assets.

• Assets required. This describes the major assets or groups of assets required for service delivery of the activity.
• Managing improved and/or expanded services. This describes how the Council will put assets in place or increase assets or organisational capacity, in order to increase or improve levels of service.
• Funding. This describes why the Council funds the activity in a particular way, that is:
  • Activities that benefit the community generally are funded by the general rate and uniform annual charge.
  • Activities that benefit specific locations or category of users are funded by targeted rates/uniform charges.
  • Activities that benefit identifiable individuals are funded from user charges.
  • Costs imposed on the community by the unwanted actions of individuals are normally funded from fines.
  • Long lasting physical assets are funded from loans to spread the costs over the assets lives.
• Managing change. This describes how change in demand for the service, Council strategy, quality standards or raised expectations will affect what and how much is delivered and how this will be managed.
• Maintenance, renewal and replacement of assets. This sets out the Council’s specific approach for ensuring the assets used to deliver the activity can continue to do so without deterioration in the level of service received by the community.
• All activities have been prepared on the budget savings outlined in the executive summary.

 

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