Kate Sutton: Deloitte Future of Auckland Lead on the State of the City report

A turning point for Auckland. 

The third annual State of the City report has been released, showing how we compare on a global scale. 

It highlights strengths in sustainability, resilience, and culture, but says we lag behind in prosperity, skills, and innovation development. 

Deloitte’s Future of Auckland Lead Kate Sutton told Andrew Dickens that Auckland’s at 40% of GDP while the productivity per capita is about 20% lower than comparable cities around the world. 

She says we’re doing more for less, and a step up needs to be done to deal with the structural reasons behind it. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
But right now we've got a new report out today
comparing Auckland City's strengths and weaknesses compared to the rest
of the world. So the Queen City is punching above
its weight in diversity, sustainability and culture, but serious action
is needed in economic opportunities, skill set and innovation. So
Kate Sutton is the lead for the Future of Auckland

(00:21):
at Deloitte and joins me. Now, good morning to your Kate.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hi, how are you? Thanks for having me on.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
It's a pleasure. Aukland's a lovely place to live, but
the economy is a bit stagnant. Is that fair? You
know what jumps out at you from this.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Report we've been We've been doing this report for three
years without partners, the Committee for Auckland and Auckland Council,
and this is the third year we've been running. It's benchmarking.
So what it does is it compes Auckland, as you said,
not just to the rest of the world, but to
comparable cities globally. So the whole thing is how are
we doing compared to our sort of peer cities. And certainly,

(00:55):
although it shows we've had some grain shoots over the
last year you talked about you mentioned that the headline
resilience certainly sustainability and culture where we do well. That's right.
Our kind of prosperity and economy pieces is lagging. Particularly
we've been focusing this year on productivity in Auckland.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
Well, why is the productivity down? Why is the productivity
not good? How can we improve the city's business performance?

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yeah, so, I mean for Auckland we're a forty percent
of the GDP, which is pretty good comparably globally, it
could be higher. However, our productivity per capita is lower
by about twenty percent from our kind of peer cities Copenhagen,
Vancouver often. So what does that mean. It means that
we're doing more for left and there's kind of some

(01:45):
structural reasons behind that, kind of low capital investment and
efficient land use, which we know the council has been
doing quite a lot of work on our export intensity
and unfortunately some of our kind of management capability, so
there's a step up that to be done. The report
does go into some recommendations around kind of structures that

(02:06):
are required. A lot of this is around we've got
this great opportunity with the city and regional deal. I'm
not sure if you've been following it. It's a bit wonky,
but it is important. The government have signed an MoU
with Auckland councils saying they're going to do a deal
to try and you know turbo charge Auckland in terms
of it being super sific. Well, that is opportunities in

(02:26):
that deal.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
That is the big question. I mean who is responsible
for driving the change? Is it local government? Is it
meyor Brown? Or is it the central government? I mean
who's in charge? Who should push this?

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Well very much so globally it shows that it has
to be triparth a or multi part a, so I
know that that can be a little bit inconvenient. We've
got the Minister Watts today, We've got Mayor Brown today,
and certainly we'll be saying to them what is the
what are the drivers for you and what what what
does deliverability look like for you? But certainly the private
sector plays a key role. So many of your listeners
will get that. You know, what are the things that

(02:58):
the private sector needs to do and invest in their businesses,
invest in people to ensure that they stay in New
Zealand and kind of reap the benefits from these great things,
the resilience and the sustainability and the culture side of
our city.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
Good South Ky Sutton, A future of all can lead
at Deloitte.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
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