Improving Performance - CouncilMARK
Ruapehu District Council is committed to a programme of performance improvement and lifting the value that we can provide to our communities and ratepayers. In addition to our desire to lift the value of services we provide to our own communities and ratepayers we are also committed to helping to lift public perceptions around the local government sector.
As part of this Ruapehu has committed to being part of the Local Government NZ (LGNZ) Excellence Programme CouncilMARK.
CouncilMARK is designed to improve the public's knowledge of the work councils are doing in their communities and to support individual councils to further improve the value they provide to all New Zealanders.
CouncilMARK is underpinned by significant research commissioned by LGNZ, including the New Zealand Local Government Survey of 3,000 citizens and businesses released in May 2015. This provided vital country-wide insights into New Zealanders' perceptions of local government.
The CouncilMARK programme aims to encourage councils to consider incentives for growing a culture of performance and includes a strong focus on fiscal strength and financial management. It is designed as a cycle of continuous improvement where-by every three years independent experts assess participating councils on four key performance indicators. These are:
- Governance, leadership and strategy,
- Transparency in financial decision-making,
- Service delivery and asset management and
- Communications and community engagement.
Ruapehu lifts CouncilMARK Rating to BBB
Council has been through its second independent assessment in late 2020 where we lifted our CouncilMARKTM rating to BBB under the Local Government NZ (LGNZ) excellence programme. The full Ruapehu CouncilMARK report can be found here.
The BBB rating indicates that in the three years since our inaugural BB rating Council has maintained its overall performance while making improvements in the key areas highlighted by the 2017 report.
BBB rating is a solid improvement from our 2017 BB rating given our challenges of being a small, rural council with limited income, serving diverse communities over a geographically large area.\
The improved rating indicates that Council is delivering competent outcomes in governance and leadership, financial decision making and transparency, service delivery and asset management and performing well in communications and engagement.
As CouncilMARK is designed as a cycle of continuous improvement this assessment this will be utilised to help focus our attention notably around project and risk management as we undertake our accelerated capital works programme.
LGNZ and the Independent Assessment Board commented on Council's motivation to make a positive impact on the lives of our residents and ratepayers.
