The council was critical of a proposed national adjustment to a non-financial performance measure, arguing this would narrow the scope of information publicly reported by councils.
Council regulation and policy team leader Scott Campbell said when councillors approved their submission to the Department of Internal Affairs last month that this would be detrimental and the public would not necessarily be told what steps were being taken to prevent problems
The council argued the new system would preserve reporting about adherence to water quality standards, but not the extent to which councils complied with rules to monitor drinking water quality and performance of water treatment processes.
"The proposed change to the measure would mean the reporting that we give to the public is only about whether we meet standards, so that’s showing if drinking water contains certain contaminants or not", Mr Campbell said at an infrastructure services committee meeting.
"But it would eliminate reporting that we currently do, which is on how effective our treatment processes are, for example, or other quality assurance and risk management processes."
This was important performance information for the public, he said.
Less information would be available in council annual reports.
Industry body Water New Zealand raised similar points.
"Providing transparent and comparable reporting of these performance measures is needed to realise their value and justify the significant effort water suppliers make to compile and report information", it said.
A spokesman for Internal Affairs said the department had given careful consideration to all submissions it received.
"The process to develop the amendments is nearing completion and the department expects to publish updated non-financial performance measures rules shortly", he said.
This would include analysis of the submissions received, the department spokesman said.
City council staff said in their report for the committee meeting that the purpose of the performance measures was to help the public to contribute to discussions on future levels of service for their communities, to participate in decision-making processes and to enable comparison of the levels of service provided by different councils.
The council’s submission "expressed concern that the proposed amendments ... would reduce the scope of the measure to an extent that would be inconsistent with the overall purpose of the performance measures".
