Civic projects that turn evidence into practical process for better Auckland Council outcomes.
Projects are led or supported by City Builders Association Limited (Rōpū Hanganga Tāone) and tracked from proposal through lodgement and follow-up. Each entry states the problem, the evidence behind it, the process proposed, and the next step. An item is described as sent only with its date and recipient, and lodged only once a reference is published.
The projects register lists City Builders Association's civic work with Auckland Council: a multi-criteria assessment for capital works, a targeted rate for amateur and community sport, and fit-for-purpose evidence standards for all data used in analysis. Each entry states the problem, the evidence, the proposed process and the next step.
Design Phase – Open for Input
This is an active design project under City Builders Association exploring a more streamlined model for community sport funding and delivery in Auckland. It is still in design, not a final proposal or campaign.
Status: Design phase. This is a design project examining options, not a final proposal, and it is not a campaign. It asks how community sport funding and delivery in Auckland could pass through fewer intermediary layers and still reach the clubs, codes and facilities that deliver sport locally.
The layers in scope sit between Sport NZ / Auckland Council funding and grassroots clubs and facilities: Aktive, at around $18–20m scale, plus local Regional Sports Trusts including Sport Auckland. The purpose of the project is to explore options that reduce those layers between funder and club, while keeping the equity and coordination functions that are still useful.
Lead: City Builders Association.
Aktive is the regional intermediary for Auckland, and partner investment from Sport NZ, Auckland Council and others flows through it to codes, clubs and local RSTs. It is therefore the layer that sits between the funders and the organisations that put the funding to work locally.
A 2021 independent review raised findings on system complexity. It also raised concerns about control, in particular about decision-making sitting with intermediaries rather than closer to the clubs and communities the funding is intended to reach. Those findings set the scope for this design project: complexity on one side, and where control and decision-making sit on the other.
Sport England runs place-based Active Partnerships and Local Delivery Pilots, and these are associated with measured reductions in inactivity. Funding and coordination are held locally against agreed outcomes, rather than with a national or regional gatekeeper. This is the closest example of the place-based, multi-year agreement model set out in Option A, and it is relevant to Auckland because it shows how outcomes can be measured when the decisions are held at the local level.
Australia uses direct club grants, for example in New South Wales, and local-government ranked facility funding, for example in Western Australia. Grants are made to clubs themselves, and facility funding is allocated from a ranking of local facility needs. This is the model behind the direct contestable streams in Option B, and it is relevant to Auckland because it tests whether clubs and small facilities can apply for and receive funding without passing through an additional regional layer.
Nordic and Dutch club models are member-owned, and the clubs hold both the assets and the decision rights over how funding is used. The club, rather than an intermediary, decides where the money goes. This is relevant to Auckland because it is the sharpest test of the principle that money and decision rights should sit closer to the local level, and it raises a practical question about which assets and decisions clubs in Auckland could hold directly.
Sport England style, drawing on the place-based partnerships described in section 3.
Multi-year outcome agreements are held at the local level, with funding and coordination agreed locally rather than routed through the regional intermediary. Funding would be committed over several years against stated outcomes.
It keeps coordination and equity, which are the functions that would otherwise be lost with the layer, and relocates them closer to the clubs and facilities that use the funding.
Whether local agreements can be held to a consistent standard of equity across Auckland, and how outcomes under a multi-year agreement would be measured and reported.
Australian style, drawing on the direct grants and ranked facility funding described in section 3.
Clubs and small facilities apply directly for funding through expanded contestable streams, with no additional regional layer between the funder and the applicant.
It keeps contestability, and a check on need case by case, with funding agreements made with the clubs and facilities themselves.
Whether clubs and small facilities have the capacity to apply for and report on funding themselves, and whether direct streams alone can hold coordination and equity across the region.
A combination of the place-based and direct-stream approaches.
Place-based multi-year agreements cover facilities and coordination, while clubs and small facilities apply directly to contestable streams for their own funding.
It keeps both halves: the local, multi-year arrangements of Option A for facilities and coordination, and the direct club access of Option B.
Where the boundary between the two channels should sit, and whether running both adds back the system complexity the project is trying to reduce.
The changes under consideration can be made through existing processes and existing legislation. No new primary legislation is required. Four levers are available:
Current: design and evidence gathering. The project is building the evidence base and developing the design options. None of the options has been adopted, and none is being proposed for adoption at this stage.
Next: four steps. Stakeholder input, so that clubs, codes and anyone else with an interest can put their experience into the design. An independent options analysis of Options A, B and C. LGOIMA requests, to obtain the information that analysis needs. And a draft design brief, which would set out the design in full for formal consideration.
Clubs, codes and the community are invited to contribute evidence or comments via the form below.
This project is in design phase. Content will be updated as options are refined. Prepared by City Builders Association, October 2026.
Listed in the projects register.
City Builders Association's analysis of the retained Auckland Regional Freight Transport Plan 2026. It tests the plan against its own evidence and identifies gaps on productivity, industrial land protection, mode-shift assumptions, Action Plan accountability, and local-board decision-making under the Allocation of Decision-Making Framework.
Full branded document (DOCX) coming soon.
From "prefer supplier" to scored delivery, budget certainty, community outcomes and pre-design accuracy.
Progress
Status checked 23 October 2026
Proposed
Oct 2026
Process report published
23 Oct 2026
Local board and staff feedback
Formal submission or briefing
A practical process for Auckland Council capital works that scores suppliers and projects on four core factors — Delivery reliability, Budget certainty, Community engagement, and Pre-design accuracy — instead of defaulting to preferred-supplier panels. Fully compatible with the Local Government Act 2002, Government Procurement Rules, and Auckland Council's Group Procurement Strategy and Better Value Projects principles. Includes automation of data collation inside existing systems (Ready Contracts, Sentient, performance scoring) to reduce staff time while preserving human judgement and audit trails.
Replacing a dying vice tax with a lawful, hypothecated, high-return public instrument, before the rates lid and the sinking lid close the window.
Progress
Status checked 23 October 2026
Submission prepared
Sep 2026
Sent to the Governing Body and Community Committee
5 Sep 2026
Awaiting Council response
Council decision
A submission asking Auckland Council to use a power it already has: a targeted rate under section 16 of the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002, hypothecated to non-council community sport and active recreation facilities, capped community-access operating support, and participation access. It would replace a shrinking Class 4 pokie base and minor alcohol sponsorship with a lawful, transparent instrument before the rates lid and the sinking lid close the window. The paper sets out the three lids, the legal steps Council cannot skip, the section 21 30 percent cap trap, a social return of $2.12 for every $1 invested, the access and safeguarding conditions a public dollar must carry, and answers to the objections that will be run.
Holding Council analysis to the standard it already applies to its own research, before poor-quality data is weighted as if it were representative.
Progress
Status checked 23 October 2026
Document prepared
Oct 2026
Sent to the Audit and Risk Committee
16 Oct 2026
Awaiting committee response
Committee recommendation
An advocacy document, and a proposal to the Audit and Risk Committee, asking for one standard of proof for all data used in analysis: samples that can carry the inference drawn from them, questions that can distinguish between views, methodology disclosed, and the strength of the evidence stated in the advice paper. It sets out the legal basis, the minimum criteria drawn from the Stats NZ quality dimensions and the Research Association of New Zealand Code of Practice, and the four changes sought — so that a survey taken at a rally is read for what it is.
More projects coming
Listed once the problem is defined and the evidence checked.
More projects coming
Listed once the problem is defined and the evidence checked.
Membership funds this work. It does not buy editorial control or preferential treatment, and it does not decide a conclusion. Members can contribute evidence, support a project and follow it through to lodgement and follow-up.
Published by City Builders Association Limited (NZBN 9429053649225, company number 9426905). Director and author: Mark Pervan. Checked 23 October 2026.
Membership funds the research and does not buy editorial control or preferential treatment. A conclusion is marked lodged only when the page shows the date, the recipient, and the reference.