Draft summary in final lineup

MANAWATU District Council’s Draft Long Term Council Community Plan Summary is in contention for a national award.

The document, distributed to nearly 12,000 district addresses in April, has qualified for the final of the New Zealand Society of Local Government Managers’ coveted Great LTCCP Summary Award.

Ten other local authorities have also been selected for finals judging – the Gisborne, Hurunui, Queenstown-Lakes and Waitaki District Councils; Hutt, Invercargill, Nelson, Palmerston North and Tauranga City Councils, and the Northland Region.
The winner will be announced at SOLGM’s Community Plan conference in Rotorua in August.

SOLGM Senior Adviser, Good Practice and Policy, Raymond Horan, said it was pleasing to see a number of outstanding examples from among the smaller councils and he congratulated them on their efforts.

Mr Horan said the summary’s four criteria – presentation of the major matters, audience focus, creativity and compliance – were marked on a scale of 0 to 10 and judging was extremely close.

Results from the first round of judging will be wiped for the final, with all remaining summaries starting with a clean slate.

MDC Community and Strategic Development Officer, Tracey Hunt, said the summary was the result of a joint effort involving council officers, photographers and graphic designers and the team was proud of the document.

“The most important thing is that it has been a really successful document,” she said, “and the way it was designed has worked – and that is where the value is.”
She said the Draft LTCCP drew a record 366 submissions as council connected with parts of the community it had not heard from before.

“It had to be a useful document for the community, and in view of the number of submissions received and this recognition by our peers, it’s turned out to be a pretty good package,” she said.

MDC Strategic Planner, Philip Bronn, said the honour of making the final 11 reflected well on the quality of the 20-page summary.

“The layout and graphics, and the way it flowed, made for easy reading, and I feel we captured the main issues facing the council in future years,” he said.

MDC’s summary highlighted key issues and council’s plans for the next decade (2009/19) and provided an overview of major projects. It also listed six “Nice to Have” projects and asked for community feedback and ratings on those proposals.

A submission form was also included on the back page of the summary.