Taituarã has just released this report which is the result of some work the Society began last year on the effects of fiscal constraint on councils. The objective was to understand ways in which councils can manage these effects and find innovative ways to increase and improve their resilience in service delivery to their communities.
The report focuses on four concepts used by English councils to meet the challenges of the austerity measures introduced since 2008 - service design and identification, co-production, increased community engagement, and shared service arrangements. It's been designed to assist managers and staff explore these alternate service delivery concepts and models - the application and adoption by councils of some or all of these could well become an important aspect of building resilience into New Zealand local government service delivery.
You can find the report in our website here. This is the latest 'Think Piece' from Taituarã's Sector Improvement team.