Download full document (pdf 240kb)A Journey through Kaipara: Telling the story of the Kaipara Community Outcomes Process Steering Group (K-COP)
7. A final word on K-COP
K–COP’s original raison d’etre, as its full name suggests, was to assist and support Council to act in accordance with Kaipara’s agreed community outcomes.
As such, K-COP has a specific mandate, purpose and focus. Each participant comes to the K-COP table as a representative of their organisation, with the ability to make decisions related to community outcomes from their organisation’s own perspective and within their own particular areas of responsibility.
“The Kaipara District Council [strategic planner] has the role to run the outcomes processes and tell us if we miss the mark. K-COP can contribute to parts, but not meet the needs of the whole thing, as each agency can really only find ways of working within their core business.” |
K-COP is not an answer to all the issues facing Kaipara. However, its longevity and the specific activities that have happened because of it demonstrate its credibility and provide the pre-conditions for its ongoing presence in Kaipara.
Its achievements are in large part due to the recognition, as one K-COP member put it, that “individuals count and can change things.”
From this base of growing relationship-based networks between key people whose organisations impact on Kaipara, K-COP has been able to develop viable project-based activities that progress the achievement of community outcomes.
From the small, relatively isolated and diverse district of Kaipara, straddling Northland’s east and west coasts, K-COP provides rich lessons for others who are seeking to work together - central government, local government and the community sector, in New Zealand and elsewhere.
The K-COP journey continues.
