Region's GPI wins national excellence awards

Wellington region’s Genuine Progress Index (GPI) – a barometer showing how well the region is faring – has won the Supreme national excellence award from the NZ Society of Local Government Managers (SOLGM).

The GPI is a joint council initiative measuring progress and well-being in the Wellington region. It’s a key project of the Wellington Regional Strategy, a long-term plan for the region’s sustainable growth.

The Supreme award and an award for the “Joined Up Local Government” category of the SOLGM Local Government Excellence Awards were presented today to Wellington Regional Strategy representatives at the SOLGM Annual Conference in Rotorua.

Sir John Anderson, Chair of the Wellington Regional Strategy (WRS) Committee said: "The Wellington Region GPI is a comprehensive project and an excellent example of how well all the councils and other organisations have worked together to produce a rigorous measure of the region’s well-being that the region can use into the future.

"It's fantastic that these awards recognise the collaborative work of all the region's councils on the Genuine Progress Index."

This is the first time in New Zealand that a GPI has been developed in conjunction with all councils in a region, with the WRS Committee endorsing it (the WRS Committee includes six of the region’s eight mayors and the chair of the regional council). An inter-agency working group developed the GPI over the last three years and continues to work on its refinement.

The GPI provides comprehensive information, largely through its innovative website, about the overall health of the region and how it’s doing economically, environmentally, socially and culturally. It enables anyone with an interest in the region to see and understand where improvements in well-being are being made or where efforts need to be focussed to make improvements.

The GPI puts a value on factors the community says are most important, such as health, education, a clean environment, decent living standards, economic security, feeling connected and overall quality of life.

The award’s judges said the project displayed leadership in the challenging area of seeking to establish meaningful measures of well-being. Don Mackay, SOLGM’s Manager Good Practice and Policy, said “They (the judges) were impressed by the manner in which a collaboration involving a large number of local authorities had been brought to a successful conclusion.”