Policy Review Section

Abstract

In this Policy Review Section Jennifer Dixon of the University of Waikato presents a critical review of the current reorganization of local and regional government in New Zealand. In the context of the Government's stated aim to raise the efficiency of the public sector, she is critical of the failure to give adequate attention to the costs and benefits of the proposed restructuring, the financing of local government, the rationale for the distribution of functions between various tiers, and the staffing implications. There is a danger that the reforms may be flawed due to the rapidity of the reform process and a failure to consider certain basic issues. In the second article Graham Haughton and Jamie Peck consider, in the light of current labour shortages, the growing concern about the need for co-ordinated local labour market policies and the increasing use of skills audits to facilitate this approach. Haughton and Peck argue that is is only through an improved understanding of the structure and dynamics of local labour markets, in particular the ways in which they control access to jobs and training, that most skills audits will yield a useable product.