Excellence Awards

The 2024 LGFA Taituarā Local Government Excellence Awards® are for programmes, projects, and approaches that demonstrate professional excellence in local government management. The awards are open to any council, or council-controlled organisation (CCO) in Aotearoa New Zealand.

About the LGFA Taituarā Local Government Excellence Awards ®

The LGFA Taituarā Local Government Excellence Awards® support a culture of success in the local government sector and encourage the sharing of good ideas and good practice amongst local authorities. Councils are encouraged to enter to impact the local government sector and to gain recognition of their excellent work.

Lessons from the winners, and many other entries will be used to inform development and redevelopment of guides and training for the sector.

Recent Supreme Award winners include:

2023 - Hutt City Council, Takai Here Tāngata
2022 - Far North District Council, Te Hiku o te Ika Revitalisation Project
2021 - Western Bay of Plenty District Council, The Transfer of Panepane Purukau
2020 - Bay of Plenty Regional Council, Te Arawa Catfish Killas
2019 - Auckland Council, Kia Puāwai
2018 - Waikato Regional Council, Kawe Kōrero
2017 - Waimakariri District Council, Draft Waimakariri Residential Red Zone Recovery Plan
2016 - Hamilton City Council, Council Transforms A City Dump – the Hamilton Gardens Project
2015 - Selwyn District Council, Project Heli

Excellence Award categories

There are seven Excellence Award categories. From these categories, a Supreme winner is selected.

• Excellence in Organisation and People Development
• The Datacom Award for Excellence in Digital Local Government
• The Department of Internal Affairs Award for Excellence in Community Engagement
• The BERL Award for Excellence in Collaborating for Results
• The Beca Award for Excellence in Placemaking
• Te Tohu Waka Hourua (the Double Canoe) – Buddle Findlay Award for Excellence in Māori-Council Partnerships
• The GHD Award for Excellence in Environmental Leadership

How to enter

Entries are now closed for 2024.

Tips on how to win an Excellence Award

We have recorded a webinar detailing How to win an Excellence Award that you can watch online. You need to be logged in to watch this recording. You can log in or sign up here.

Examples of previous successful entries

Here are two examples of successful entries to serve as a source of inspiration and of design ideas.

Hutt City council won the 2023 Supreme Award for its entry Takai Here Tāngata.

Auckland Council’s entry Kia Puāwai won the Supreme Award in 2019 and remains the entry that received the highest overall score from the judges since Taituarā moved to this awards format in 2015.

Read about previous winners below

About the 2023 Excellence Awards
About the 2022 Excellence Awards
About the 2021 Excellence Awards

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