Ruapehu District Council

In addition to our desire to lift the value of services we provide to our own communities and ratepayers we are also committed to helping to lift public perceptions around the local government sector. As part of this programme Ruapehu has committed to being part of the Local Government NZ (LGNZ) Excellence Programme called CouncilMARK. CouncilMARK is designed to improve the public's knowledge of the work councils are doing in their communities and to support individual councils to further improve the value they provide to all New Zealanders. For further information visit the CouncilMARK programme website. CouncilMARK is underpinned by significant research commissioned by LGNZ, including the New Zealand Local Government Survey of 3,000 citizens and businesses released in May 2015. This provided vital country-wide insights into New Zealanders' perceptions of local government. The CouncilMARK programme aims to encourage councils to consider incentives for growing a culture of performance and includes a strong focus on fiscal strength and financial management. It is designed as a cycle of continuous improvement where-by every three years independent experts assess participating councils on four key performance indicators. These are: Governance, leadership and strategy, Transparency in financial decision-making, Service delivery and asset management and Communications and community engagement. Ruapehu receives inaugural CouncilMARK rating of BB