Almost every second business in the country is unhappy with the support and services of their local council.The first MYOB Business Monitor survey measuring local government support, revealed 44% of businesses around the country are dissatisfied or very d
Almost every second business in the country is unhappy with the support and services of their local council.
The first MYOB Business Monitor survey measuring local government support, revealed 44% of businesses around the country are dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with local government bodies.
MYOB general manager Julian Smith told the National Business Review these ratings are “extremely high” and surprisingly much higher than businesses’ dissatisfaction with the central government, which sits at 38%.
“The dissatisfaction with the central government has been steadily increasing right throughout the financial crisis and that’s pretty much a reflection of when times a tough for businesses they tend to take it out on the government.
“I’m not surprised to see the dissatisfaction with the central government going up because they’ve [also] just imposed a big tax change on business and it’s kind of a natural reaction.”
Mr Smith said these figures should be a wake-up call for councils around the country.
“Local government need to realise that their clients are businesses just as much as home-owners and if we want great cities and great towns then they have to create an environment where people want to work and where people want to do business.”
Companies in most provincial centres – including Waikato (68%), Otago and Southland (51%) and Marlborough (49%) – were the most dissatisfied by local government, apart from Taranaki, which had the lowest levels of business dissatisfaction (17%).
At 42%, the new Auckland super city sits about middle in terms of support for businesses.
Christchurch companies were the county’s most satisfied with councils. Mr Smith outs it down to the performance of Christchurch City Council during the September earthquake.
Sole traders, who make up approximately 70% of all business owners, were the most dissatisfied with their councils (46%) and the least satisfied (7%), while more than half of all businesses in the manufacturing and wholesale sector (54%) were unhappy with the support they receive from local government.
