The prospect of City Deals in New Zealand

City Deals
Written By Linda Meade

Debate emerging in New Zealand policymaking community about the potential of City Deals. From the National Party’s announcement that a deal-based model will be pursued if they are elected in the next general election to the findings of the recent “Review into the Future for Local Government” (RFLG) - which referenced “place-based agreements” that encompass “city deals, town deals, region deals, community agreements, and growth deals - the idea of deal-making appears to promise new arrangements for infrastructure delivery and a potential re-calibration of central-local government relationships.

At the local level, the potential of City Deals is evident in policy discussions in Hamilton and Wellington among other places. While the governance innovation of deals and deal-making would be a novelty in New Zealand, such agreements and processes have been pioneered and tried elsewhere. Indeed, a paper by BECA for the RFLG identified the Edinburgh (UK) and Geelong (Australia) deals as examples that may offer useful insights for what it called “collaborative governance”. Building on this comparative perspective, the paper referenced here draws on insights from Australia and the longer standing deals in the UK to identify key issues and dimensions that policymakers may usefully consider. The aim is to further dialogue on the potentials and challenges of City Deals in the New Zealand setting.

Though policymakers will of course have scope to adapt a City Deal model for the New Zealand context, the authors suggest that it may be useful to consider the following key issues:

  • Fit within a national urban strategy and the spatial policy problem to address

  • The sequencing of dealmaking

  • The manner in which central government guides the dealmaking process

  • Dealmaking for infrastructure or a wider set of economic development concerns

  • Local and national capacities to undertake dealmaking

  • The nature and scope of stakeholder consultation through deal development

  • The role of monitoring and evaluation

Linda Meade

Linda leads Kalimena’s infrastructure investment advisory work. Linda established Kalimena after a career spanning over a decade respectively at Deloitte and PwC, including time spent in London, Geneva and Wellington. Up until 2020 she was lead partner in New Zealand for Deloitte Access Economics, and the partner in charge of the Infrastructure, Economics and Business Modelling team. Linda’s areas of expertise are in designing and applying investment systems and processes, tailored to the type of infrastructure, the sector, and the desired outcomes. Linda specialises in social infrastructure (education, health, housing) and transport.  She is most interested in projects where there is a clear understanding of the desired outcomes for people and communities in New Zealand, working mostly with public sector clients. 

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