If size matters, then Auckland Council Te Kaunihera o Tāmaki Makaurau wins hands down.
In November 2010, Auckland Council replaced seven territorial authorities and the Auckland Regional Council – making it the biggest local government authority in Australasia.
With this month marking 10 years since amalgamation, let’s take a look at some of what it takes to keep Auckland Council running.
The people:
- 1 Mayor
- 20 Councillors
- 21 local boards with between five and nine members elected to each board (149 local board members in total).
- 5 Council Controlled Organisations (ATEED, Panuku, Auckland Transport, Regional Facilities Auckland and Watercare)
- 6341 full-time Auckland Council staff (as at 30 September) - not including those employed across the Council Controlled Organisations
- Our people and technology systems connect over 10,000 people across 300 locations, every day (including libraries, parks, and leisure centres)
Other council critters:
- 112,530 dogs are registered with Auckland Council
- Auckland Zoo Te Whare Kararehe o Tāmaki Makaurau is currently home to 153 different species (55 of these are native species; birds, reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates) and 1701 individual animals
- Youngest animal at the Auckland Zoo Te Whare Kararehe o Tāmaki Makaurau is a three-week-old kiwi chick
- Oldest animal at the Auckland Zoo Te Whare Kararehe o Tāmaki Makaurau is a female Galapagos tortoise Snapper (51 years)
- The council has about 400 cattle and 5500 ewes on its farms
Bricks and mortar:
- 55 libraries
- 119 million visits to our libraries
- 157 million books and e-books issued
- 740,000 new library members registered
- 200 (plus) community venues/facilities
- 92,000 people use community centres, halls and facilities each week
- 1 in 5 Aucklanders visited one of the council’s arts and culture facilities (more than 272,000) in 2019/20
- 86 skate parks
- 11 early childhood education centres
- 54 cemeteries
- 46 pools and leisure centres
- 885 playgrounds
- 8609 park benches
- 206 Barbecues
- 4500+ parks (including 28 regional parks of which 18 are farmed)
- 99 outdoor showers
- 390 drinking fountains
- 308 boat ramps
- 191 basketball courts
- 32 swimming pontoons
- 2481 protected heritage places
- Auckland Council has nearly 1500 hectares of working coastal pastures across the 18 (farmed) regional parks
- Auckland Council’s public art collection includes more than 400 artworks across the region
Environment, Waste and Water:
In the last 10 years, Auckland Council has increased its investment in stormwater infrastructure from $39 million in 2011 to $159 million in 2020 an increase of over 300 per cent.
In the 2020/2021 financial year, the council group will spend $1.16 billion delivering water services.
Auckland Council, Watercare and Auckland Transport look after:
- 397 million litres of drinking water per day
- 409 million litres of wastewater per day
- 3200km of coastline
- 27 drinking water sources
- 8327km (plus) of waste-water pipes
- 9428km (plus) of water supply pipes
- 324,227 (plus) of manholes
- 377,000 tonnes a year of rubbish and recycling
- 99 per cent of graffiti incidents reported to the council are removed within 24 hours
Digital services
- There were 9.5 million visits to the Auckland Council website, up 17 per cent on 18/19, and 15 million visits to other core websites, up 13 per cent on 18/19
- We provide 50 per cent of our products and services online
- There were 816,000 customer transactions on our websites, not including rates payments or library transactions. This includes 280,000 building inspection bookings
- There are now 270,000 customer myAUCKLAND accounts
- 65,000 properties have been added to myAUCKLAND, representing 11.5 per cent of all the rateable properties in Auckland
- There were 3.5 million property searches on our website - mainly property valuation and waste and recycling.
2019-2020: What a year!
- 5 million customer engagements including parks, libraries and recreation facilities
- 98 per cent of public transport trips were punctual
- More than 3.6 million movements were recorded at our bike counting sites
- 82 million public transport trips were made
- More than 1000 media inquiries taken/responded to
- 1500 stories were published on the OurAuckland website
- Over 1000 Facebook posts were shared by core council pages
- Auckland Council social pages combined have over 900,000 followers
- 1400 permits granted for events on public spaces last year
- 79 million visits were made to council’s arts, environment, sports venues and events (including 700,000 visitors to Auckland Zoo Te Whare Kararehe o Tāmaki Makaurau)
- 120,000 plants planted in our local parks
- 156,500 plants planted in our regional parks
COVID-19 in 2020:
Auckland Council worked with the community and government to provide immediate welfare support to Aucklanders who needed it most.
During the lockdown period, we supported our communities including the Auckland City Mission and our most vulnerable by:
- Handling more than 35,900 requests for assistance
- Partnering with other agencies, iwi, hapū, whānau and marae to dispatch more than 27,400 food parcels and 10,000 essential parcels through our distribution centre at Spark Arena to over 25,000 households
- Making more than 15,000 calls to those over 70 living alone, with 388 of those requesting further assistance
- Delivering 50,000 Ministry of Health bilingual English and Te Reo Māori COVID-19 flyers across Tāmaki Makaurau and a total of 2500 kai and hygiene packs
