Trying to do their level best

Levelling is often a word we tend to apply to a process if we approve of it. If we don’t, we might call it flattening.

Southland’s councils, and a major community funder, are separately but simultaneously looking at ways to level out aspects what they do.

The councils are considering bringing uniformity to the building consent fees they individually charge. They’re higher in Invercargill than in the Southland and Gore districts.

The Community Trust of Southland is changing school funding to replace scholarships with a system that gives principals much more choice about where the money is spent.

Both of which sound fairer. The trust plan actually is. The council proposal could be.

It certainly strikes as counterintuitive that the fees for a new dwelling in the city, at $6200, are $1200 more than Gore and nearly $3000 more than Southland.

Clearly, however, the answer isn’t simply to average them out.

Gore District Mayor Tracy Hicks says some charges might increase while some might decrease.

The first question, surely, must be whether the city developers aren’t being overcharged.

The explanation that the city charges per square metre, not on flat rates, doesn’t, in itself, satisfy.

What’s needed is convincing assurance that the fees are no higher than they need to be.

Those people and companies with building projects in Southland or Gore district will not be serene at the possibility of paying more simply so those in the city can pay less.

Bottom line: the process of aligning fees is thoroughly welcome if it’s done right, by casting off inertia and calibrating everything off what’s needed.

As for the community trust, it has been handing out $400,000 in scholarships and $110,000 directly to schools. The changes will give the full $510,000 under fairly broad guidelines that include helping under-achieving students, encouraging student engagement and preparing students for postschool life. This would still afford principals the discretion to include a scholarship component.

The gains here, in terms of flexibility, are obvious. Help for more, potentially many more, students and greater freedom for individual schools to prioritise.

But this does come at the loss of a status quo that has been more tightly targeted towards excellence, albeit that more scholarships are nowadays available from other sources.