Tasman District Council boss to head up local government reform team

Tuesday, 1 March 2022

Tasman District Council chief executive Janine Dowding is about to take up a new role with the Department of Internal Affairs on a year-long secondment.

Tasman District Council chief executive Janine Dowding will head a team charged with delivering reform of the local government sector in New Zealand.

Dowding is scheduled to take up the role as executive director of the Review into the Future for Local Government on March 14 – on a year-long secondment to Te Tari Taiwhenua - Department of Internal Affairs (DIA).

“Then, I’ll come back and serve out the remainder of my [council] contract this time next year,” she said.

The review, set to reshape how local authorities function over the next 25 to 30 years, was announced by Minister for Local Government Nanaia Mahuta in April 2021. It comes as the Government looks to change some key traditional functions of councils via its Three Waters and resource management reforms.

Dowding is scheduled to bid goodbye to Tasman District Council for a year on March 14.

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The past four years in local government have been a steep learning curve, says Janine Dowding.

A panel, with former Waimakariri District Council chief executive Jim Palmer as chairman, was selected through the Cabinet for the local government review. The review is broad with a range of matters under consideration including the sector’s functions, roles and structures along with its funding arrangements and relationships with central government, iwi, businesses, communities and other organisations.

It released an interim report in September. Its final report is due in April 2023.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern talks about local government reform during a visit to Nelson. (Video first published in June 2021)

Dowding said much of her work would be directed by the panel. “Some of it will be … taking their direction and shaping up responses and options.”

She also envisaged working closely with people heading up the teams for the three waters and resource management reforms as all three areas were “intrinsically linked”.

Invited to apply for the DIA role, Dowding said she believed that invitation was likely due to her combination of central and local government experience. She spent 33 years with the Ministry of Social Development, becoming regional commissioner in 2003.

“I led the welfare reforms back in 2011-13,” she said. “I was director of welfare reforms for MSD.”

Tasman District mayor Tim King, pictured with Janine Dowding at the 2019 council swearing-in ceremony, says Dowding managed the council through “an extremely challenging period” over the past four years.

In 2018, Dowding secured the job as Tasman District Council chief executive, saying at the time that the move met a desire to broaden her experience.

The past four years in local government had been a steep learning curve with a range of challenges, from multiple overruns with the Waimea dam project to handling the council’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“I figured that there's got to be a reason for all of that learning and all of those challenges to be overcome, and it can be put to useful application in that [DIA] role,” Dowding said.

As well as those learnings, Dowding would also bring the perspective of a unitary authority to the job and knowledge of some “challenges on the ground”.

While excited by the opportunity, it was a tough decision “as my commitment to the team and working with our community through all the challenges we are facing, has never been stronger”.

“Lucky, I have such a supportive team and the supportive council to release me to do it,” she said. “It's fortuitous that we've got a structure that allows for some agility like this.”

Council deputy chief executive and head of operations Leonie Rae, who was appointed in 2021, is set to fill Dowding’s role during the year-long absence.

“I'm absolutely comfortable that we're in good shape with the leadership team and Leonie and in the mayor and the councillors’ support,” Dowding said. “It couldn't happen without any one of those things lining up.”

When asked if she was expecting conflict in the new role, Dowding said reform inevitably brought such challenges.

“Any change to the status quo has impacts,” she said. “You just have to focus on doing the right thing and considering the impacts and taking the right sort of advice and input.”

Tasman mayor Tim King said Dowding had managed the council through “an extremely challenging period” over the past four years.

“Having someone of Janine's background, experience and calibre involved with such a significant potential change to local government will benefit the wider local government sector,” King said.

DIA deputy chief executive Michael Lovett said Dowding had the experience and background to lead the review and help position New Zealand for the future.

“I look forward to Janine joining the team.”