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Councillors have challenged a resolution that recognised Auckland Council as meeting its customer service targets.
At the Finance and Performance committee meeting on May 19, chair Cr Desley Simpson put forward a resolution to acknowledge that customer service targets were being met in most cases, despite the impacts of Covid-19.
The one exception, where Council acknowledged it had not met its own targets, was regulatory performance (including the time it is taking to process things like resource consents)
“Although challenges related to the high demands for consents and staff shortages have impacted regulatory performance, there are improvement initiatives in place to address this,” the resolution said.
The resolution related to Council’s quarterly performance report, which showed three of four customer satisfaction targets had been met.
Four councillors, Wayne Walker, John Watson, Greg Sayers and Sharon Stewart, voted against the resolution.
Cr Sayers said that in terms of the data he received outside of the performance report he did not believe Council had reached a good level of customer satisfaction.
“I think it looked like an overall 20 percent customer satisfaction rating,” Sayers said.
Cr Watson wanted to commend workers “at the coal face”, but questioned the wording of the resolution.
“I do not want to underestimate the unpleasant nature of what people were forced into as a consequence of bigger events,” Watson said. “I guess my rhetorical question is, without adding everything up, whether the resolution is accurate. It is good to see a number that are achieved but there are also a number that are not.”
Watson looked to the citizens’ monitoring report that was not a part of the quarterly performance report.
“Certainly, in that polling, the results have been less than impressive for quite some time now,” he said.
Cr Fa’anānā Efeso Collins said that on the positive side, that Council should be grateful for Aucklanders’ patience.
“Customer satisfaction means that given all of these changes, Aucklanders have been patient with us. They are willing to come along the journey with us,” Collins said.
The resolution was passed despite the four Councillors’ opposition.
