Tauranga City councillors started their three year term this week grappling with paperless agendas and fine tuning a new committee structure.

'If it does work, it's certainly going to save quite a bit of paper,” says Mayor Greg Brownless.

The agenda for the first meeting was a relatively slim 161 paper pages, which the councillors now read on tablets.

Also voted in at the first meeting is a new structure comprising six standing and special committees instead of four. Four joint committees and two advisory groups.

'There's a couple more committees than last time,” says Greg, speaking after the meeting.

'The idea was that not all councillors would be on all committees. We would share them around a bit. But any councillor can go to any meeting.

'Those committees that don't have everybody on it, they can only recommend to council, so in effect the councillors still get a vote on every decision. But I think sometimes you get paralysed by having too many people, it is easier to sit around smaller tables in terms of getting things done.

'It also means I have been able to give jobs to people where I think they have strengths in the areas there. In a way the main committees were pretty well reasonably obvious.”

The city council now has six standing committees that will meet every month; the City Transformation Committee chaired by Larry Baldock, the Transport Committee chaired by Rick Curach, the Environment Committee chaired by Steve Morris, the Community and Culture Committee chaired by Terry Molloy, the Economic Development and Investment Committee chaired by Max Mason, and the Audit Finance Risk and Monitoring Committee chaired by Gail McIntosh.

They are six person committees with Mayor Greg Brownless an ex-officio member of all committees – except for the Audit, Finance, Risk and Monitoring Committee which has seven members including Greg Brownless, plus one independent committee member appointed by council.

The transformation committee was originally to be called ‘urban form built environment' but the name change reflects the committee's scope which includes the development and oversight of urban centres strategies.

'It's the way we look at doing things that needs to change,” says Greg.

The council has to think cleverly about multi uses for all the city heart wish list items, to keep the costs down, says Greg.

The transport committee's scope includes developing plans and options to increase public transport use, walking and cycling.

The Environment Committee has wide ranging powers including oversight of all the city waters, drinking, stormwater, sewerage, and responsibility for developing waste minimisation plans and strategies.

The two finance committees have different roles. The Economic Development and Investment Committee is more forward looking overseeing the strategic approach to economic development, while the audit committee has amore monitoring role, and oversees the development of financial and treasury management strategies and policies.

'That's why Gail McIntosh with her accountancy background is the chair of the audit committee and Max Mason with his economic development hat it the chair of the other,” says Greg.

If the new structure doesn't work they will change it in July.

'There's no point in having a committee for the sake of it, and there's no point in having a meeting if there is nothing on the agenda.”