Our recommendations

We have already provided Waikato Regional Council, Taranaki Regional Council, Horizons Regional Council, and Environment Southland with specific recommendations (see Appendix 1).

The recommendations that we make here are aimed at all regional councils and unitary authorities.

We recommend that all regional councils and unitary authorities:

1. review methods for reporting results of their freshwater quality monitoring to ensure that the methods:
   • compare the freshwater quality monitoring results with (ideally specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) plan objectives, limits, and standards where possible and with guidelines where necessary;
   • say whether freshwater quality is getting better or worse;
   • outline probable reasons why freshwater quality is in the condition that it is; and
   • discuss what the council and the community are doing, or can do, to remedy any problems;
2. set up stronger links between freshwater quality monitoring results and how they measure the effectiveness of their policies for maintaining and enhancing freshwater quality; and
3. meet the requirements of sections 35(2)(b) and 35(2A) of the Resource Management Act 1991 to monitor the effectiveness and efficiency of the policies, rules, or methods in their policy statements and plans, and to compile and make the results of this monitoring available to the public at least every five years.

We recommend that the Ministry for the Environment:

4. provide guidance on what is expected from regional councils to meet the requirements of sections 35(2)(b) and 35(2A) of the Resource Management Act 1991.

We recommend that all regional councils and unitary authorities:

5. include specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound objectives in their regional plans and in their long-term plans under the Local Government Act 2002.

We recommend that the Ministry for the Environment:

6. seek input from regional councils and unitary authorities on whether they need information on:
   • the economic assessments required to implement the changes required in the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management; and
   • what has been learned from limit-setting processes already carried out in New Zealand and internationally.

We recommend that all regional councils and unitary authorities:

7. be able to demonstrate that they are co-ordinating their efforts effectively with appropriate stakeholders to improve freshwater quality; and
8. review their delegations and procedures for prosecuting, to ensure that any decision about prosecution is free from actual or perceived political bias.

Appendix 2 of this report is a self-assessment audit tool for regional councils and unitary authorities to use to assess their own performance against the criteria we used for our audit and against the emerging issues and best practice that we identified during our audit.