Collaboration gets a thumbs up

Councils now have three different pathways they can take when developing plans and plan changes (fast track, the standard First Schedule process, and collaborative). It will be interesting to see how many councils choose the new collaborative approach.
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The 'OECD Environmental Performance Reviews: New Zealand 2017' recognises the value of collaborative processes for securing support for reforms, raising awareness about water risks and costs, and increasing users' willingness to pay and to handle conflicts. However, the report (from pages 191-192) also states:
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“… there are concerns that the New Zealand collaborative governance approach in some cases may minimise, or at least delay, change for the following reasons:

• Change is predicated on consensus, which can be expensive and time-consuming.
• An imbalance of vested interests in collaborative groups and technical advisory groups can reduce the potential of collaborative governance groups to achieve ambitious water quality limits. Community members have to dedicate considerable time to the collaborative process. Added to this, collaborative group members are often exposing themselves to their community by fronting difficult conversations and solutions.
• There is variable capacity of community members to understand and assimilate information that includes complex biophysical, cultural, social and economic data.

The success of collaborative planning processes will depend on many factors, including how well they are resourced, the range of skills and views held by the collaborative group and the timeframe of the process.”