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Key points

This indicator measures residents’ rating of agreement that decisions made by their local council are in the best interests of the city. Elected members have a responsibility to reflect their communities’ values. The perception of residents’ confidence in council decision-making is a measure of community representation and reflects how close local government is to its community of interest.

• Survey data shows that Waikato regional communities have a reasonably high level of confidence in their councils’ decision-making.
• Baseline data for Waikato regional communities was collected through the 2007 Waikato Community Outcomes Survey commissioned by MARCO and Choosing Futures Waikato.  The survey was repeated in 2010.  Respondents were asked: ‘We are interested in understanding your views on the role of your local Council.  For each of the following statements can you please tell if you agree or disagree using the scale where 0 = Strongly Disagree and 10 is Strongly Agree…. (a) Overall, you understand how your Council makes decisions; (b) You have enough say in what your Council does; (c) Overall, you have confidence that the Council makes decisions that are in the best interests of your district’.
• Over half of the respondents (52%) in 2010 agreed (scores 6-10) with the statement ‘Overall, you have confidence that the Council makes decisions that are in the best interests of your District’ but this dropped to 47% for the statement ‘You have enough say in what your Council does’.  Between 26% and 37% disagreed with each statement (scores 0 – 4).
• The Agreement Index (weighted average score) ranged from 57.6 points for the statement ‘Overall, you understand how your Council makes decisions’ down to 50.6 for the statement ‘You have enough say in what your Council does’.  The factor ‘Overall, you understand how your Council makes decisions’ (Index 57.6) was up 2.4 points from 2007 while the factor ‘You have enough say in what your Council does’ (Index 50.6) was up 3.1 points.
• The Agreement Index for the Council Decision Making factors varied by location but the variance was greatest for the statement ‘Overall, you have confidence that the Council makes decisions that are in the best interests of your district’.  Thames-Coromandel respondents agreed less with this statement (Index 42.2).

Confidence in Council decision making – Waikato territorial authority areas and New Zealand average

Source: 2007 and 2010 Waikato Community Outcomes Survey (International Research Consultants Ltd/MARCO); Big Cities Quality of Life Survey 2008
Note 1: The Agreement Index for New Zealand was calculated as a weighted average index from a five-point scale.  Results for New Zealand come from a different source than the other results and may be influenced by methodological differences.  For these reasons, comparisons with the New Zealand figures should be interpreted cautiously.
Note 2: The 2010 survey sample included 70 interviews for most districts (100 for Hamilton) but only 21 for Waitomo and 8 for Rotorua.  The 2007 survey used a similar sampling method.  Hence, the results for Waitomo and Rotorua should be treated with particular caution.

Understand how Council makes decisions – Waikato territorial authority areas and New Zealand average

Source: 2007 and 2010 Waikato Community Outcomes Survey (International Research Consultants Ltd/MARCO); Big Cities Quality of Life Survey 2008
Note 1: The Agreement Index for New Zealand was calculated as a weighted average index from a five-point scale.  Results for New Zealand come from a different source than the other results and may be influenced by methodological differences.  For these reasons, comparisons with the New Zealand figures should be interpreted cautiously.
Note 2: The 2010 survey sample included 70 interviews for most districts (100 for Hamilton) but only 21 for Waitomo and 8 for Rotorua.  The 2007 survey used a similar sampling method.  Hence, the results for Waitomo and Rotorua should be treated with particular caution.