Auckland, New Zealand, has big plans for our city’s transportation infrastructure. We can’t afford to think in half-measures, because Auckland continues to grow at a dramatic pace. By 2020, our city of 1.4 million is expected to expand to 2.2 million, and a lot of those people are going to need ways to get around. We adopted a custom digital solution called Fulcrum that could manage the 200-plus construction projects on our plate from end-to-end. Developed by LeapThought, the 2015 Microsoft CityNext Partner of the Year, Fulcrum uses the capabilities of SharePoint Server to provide cross-departmental tools that help manage properties impacted by projects such as City Rail Link. Although Fulcrum was implemented initially for City Rail Link, the solution can grow and evolve with our agency’s needs. The cost savings and operational efficiencies gained by using Fulcrum on big projects can also extend to smaller capital projects as well. We estimate a savings of $3 million in the first 10 years alone, and the more projects we put into the system, the more savings we’ll realize.

This paper provides an overview of key trends and developments impacting on local democracy and is intended to be a broad-ranging background paper to assist in discussions at a workshop organised by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), in partnership with the Commonwealth Local Government Forum (CLGF), to be held in Stockholm in early November 2014, which will bring together academics and practitioners to explore current trends and developments in local democracy.

2010 was the Australian Year of Women in Local Government. This paper provides some background information on the Year, an outline of the activities undertaken and some thoughts on how to take the agenda forward beyond 2010.

Samoa is one of the many small developing countries that are now joining the international call to strengthen local government in a global effort to advance this institution as a recognized force for positive development, especially with respect to the achievement of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Part of the process includes the introduction of good governance practices through capacity building in order for local government to become proficient in managing resources and to be efficient and effective in service delivery. Accountability and transparency are central to the capacity building process. This paper finds that these central principles of good governance are neither novel nor foreign to the cultural and social practices of local government in Samoa. Hence, it is argued that any attempt to build the capacity of local government in Samoa should involve enhancing and embracing those established cultural measures that underpin accountability and transparency

New Zealand’s Local Government Act 2002 ushered in a new phase in local government, a phase that is best characterised by the term ‘empowerment’. Not only were councils empowered to promote social, economic, environmental and cultural well-being, in contrast with previous more prescriptive legislation, but citizens were empowered to engage in community-led strategic planning. In many respects the new statute reflected contemporary international public management trends in which governance is increasingly being conducted via networks of public and private actors. However, with the change of government from a centre-left Labour-led coalition to a centre-right National-led government following the November 2008 general election, it is less certain that local government and communities will continue to experience a strengthening of the pluralisation of governance that has been a feature of the past decade. This article argues that the potential disempowerment of local government, and possible attenuation of community-led strategic planning in New Zealand, comes at a time when the momentum for devolution to local government and other communities is increasing elsewhere.