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The number of complaints or “requests for service” being fielded by Auckland Council compliance officers is unsustainable, according to a report presented to Council’s Regulatory Committee on April 12.
Theoretically, if the team was fully staffed, each officer would have to work 123.2 hours a week to get through the caseload, the Achieving Regulatory Compliance, Prioritisation and Resource Allocation report stated.
Council’s Compliance Response and Investigations team is tasked with dealing with complaints relating to potential breaches of the Resource Management Act, Building Act and council bylaws.
The team comprises about 65 staff. It is part of the Licensing and Regulatory Compliance Department which currently comprises about 430 people divided into six units. The department undertakes a range of functions including animal management, food and alcohol licensing and compliance. In addition to the noise team, it is made up of four geographically based teams (north, west, central and south), a regionally focused team and an investigations team which undertakes prosecutions.
On average the annual number of complaints in some key areas are:
• Resource Management Act, Building Act and bylaws – 15,000
• Dog Control Act – 32,000
• Noise (under the Resource Management Act but recorded separately) – 60,000.
At the meeting, the committee voted seven to four to approve an updated categorisation and prioritisation of complaints matrix.
The matrix, which helps to manage the workload, has four separate categories – P1 and P2 complaints must be attended to quickly while P3 matters are dealt with as resources allow and P4 complaints mean compliance staff are unlikely to respond.
Licensing and regulatory compliance general manager James Hassall said that often, P4 complaints were not compliance issues.
“Sometimes it is neighbours complaining about a boundary line,” Hassall said. “Part of the problem comes from the public not knowing what the compliance team does.”
Hassall said the number of complaints was increasing by about five per cent annually and was expected to rise by 15% in the next few years as Tāmaki Makaurau’s population grew.
Hassall said the complexity of complaints was also increasing, which put further strain on staff. High staff turnover at 24% was also a factor, with workloads a key factor in people leaving.
Cr Daniel Newman said while an issue might be trivial to the compliance team, it was not trivial for the complainant.
“I cannot ask my constituents to pay higher and higher rates for a lower level of service,” Newman said.
“I cannot, in all good conscious, vote for this when I think we need to have a debate about funding this to respond to P3s and P4s in a timely way,” Newman said.
Newman asked where the Compliance Response and Investigations Unit was at with its business case for more staff.
“Why am I being asked to endorse a matrix when the resourcing question has not been resolved?”
Regulatory Services director Craig Hobbs said it was a sensitive issue in the current financially constrained environment and he was unable to say when the business case would be ready.
Independent Māori Statutory Board member Glenn Wilcox said complaints would grow as the city grew.
“People need to know they are heard and that something has happened with their complaint,” Wilcox said.
Wilcox stressed the importance of hearing mana whenua under the treaty principles.
When some councillors said they would vote against the matrix update, committee chair Linda Cooper said that was disappointing.
“It is not really the matrix that is wrong. It is the resourcing,” Cooper said.
“This is not the place to protest. The place to protest is at the Finance and Performance Committee.”
Cooper said compliance management was core Council business.
“We will have to cut in other areas to achieve a higher level of service,” Cooper said. “We cannot keep putting the rates up without adding more value.”
The updated categorisation and prioritisation matrix was approved by the committee with seven voting for and four against.
