Measure the success of your strategy
What will you monitor?
Make a list of things to monitor. If you’ve developed your strategy carefully, and based it on what you learned during consultation, making a list of things to monitor will be simple. Make sure your list is based on what matters to the community, and on the resources available.
You’ve already learned what issues the community is concerned about, and what changes the community wants. These changes might be specific: We want more lighting in our street. The trees in the local park need to be protected. They might be broad: The city centre should look more attractive. We want to feel safer in our homes.
Your strategy will aim to achieve these changes, and your monitoring will tell you how well you’ve achieved them.
AERs: a place to start
Once you’ve listed the things you need to monitor, find the relevant AER (Anticipated Environmental Result) for each one in the district or regional plan. AERs are outcome focused, and help you get specific about what changes you’re monitoring.
They also help make sure your monitoring ‘fits’ with other monitoring being done in council like monitoring of: district plans, compliance, complaints, noise, annual or strategic plans, and state of the environment monitoring and reporting. However, if one of the things you need to monitor doesn’t have a related AER, make sure you still include it in your list.
The process doesn’t need to be complex. Sometimes you’ll simply be monitoring the city or district plan itself.
Reference material
In response
to concerns from local businesses and residents, Auckland City Council used
face to face and telephone surveys to assess whether the District Plan rules
for Business 4 Zone were achieving the Council’s and community’s
needs. Staff gained a lot of on-site and off-site information that will
be useful for other projects, and expect the time and resources required
to lessen each time the survey is repeated.
