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Members elected to the Hibiscus subdivision of the Hibiscus & Bays Local Board in 2019 – Leanne Willis, Andy Dunn and Gary Brown – have stated in their campaigns (including in the election feature this issue) that the local board had an unprecedented 100 percent completion rate for community projects over its three year term.
Fact checking this with Auckland Council revealed that it is correct – in fact they are underselling it a bit – on average over the three year term, 123 percent of the work programme was delivered.
The kind of projects they are talking about here are playground, car park and toilet block renewals, the renewal of the bridge across the estuary to Ōrewa College and bollard installation at Hatfields Beach and Moana Reserve, Ōrewa. Auckland Council’s area operations manager, Kris Bird, says the 123 percent average figure is because projects earmarked for future years were delivered early.
“If we overdeliver in a financial year, the budget and number of projects for the following year is reduced,” Bird says.
He says in the 2019/2020 financial year, 74 percent of the work programme was achieved with significant impacts on delivery due to Covid-19. In 2020/2021, this increased to 153 percent and for 2021/2022, 143 percent of the work programme was delivered.
As to the “unprecedented” claim, Bird says the rate is higher than in previous years. He says figures show that in the 2017/2018 financial year, 62 percent of the work programme was delivered and in 2018/2019, 89 percent was delivered.
