Local government professionals surveyed across Aotearoa New Zealand have told us where their councils are succeeding in health, safety and well-being, and where work needs to be done. Significant areas of reform such as Three Waters, RMA, and the Future for Local Government have not influenced priorities so far, but there's a consensus that they will shape priorities going forward.
The highlights of the survey:
- Areas that respondents felt their Council currently does well included embedding Health, Safety and Well-being (HSW) into the culture, training and education, resourcing of the HSW team, demonstrated commitment, leadership, risk management, communication, and provision of wellbeing services to staff.
- Areas for improvement included contractor management, systems, psychosocial Health & Safety, risk management, awareness and education, leadership and engagement, and provision of wellbeing services.
- Two thirds of respondents said the future changes (Three Waters, RMA, the Future for Local Government Reform) had not influenced their HSW priorities, though many respondents commented that the changes are likely to impact priorities as the shape of the change becomes clearer.
- Priorities for working together included sharing ideas, resources, and good practice on a range of HSW topics, providing networking and professional development opportunities, and providing benchmarked data.
- Ninety-three per cent of respondents are keen to participate in a sector-wide HSW survey, with comments about the survey needing to be simple, short, providing comparison results, covering relevant areas and being available to all councils, not just those who use the AskYourTeam platform.
- Three out of five respondents are keen to be personally involved in future collective HSW work.
For more information please contact James Lord, General Manger, System Capability.