Why Your 10-Year Plan Needs a Comms Partner

If you’re a council policy lead, communications manager, or community engagement lead working on your next Long Term Plan, this guide is for you. We’ve led the creative communications work behind LTP campaigns for territorial authorities in Aotearoa, and the things that separate a successful LTP campaign from a forgettable one are mostly knowable in advance.

The short version

The Long Term Plan is the most important publication a New Zealand council produces. It’s a 10-year strategic and financial blueprint required by the Local Government Act 2002 to be adopted every three years and consulted on with the public before adoption. Done well, the LTP is how a community comes to understand and trust what its council is building. Done poorly, it disappears into PDFs nobody reads.

Why LTPs are hard

An LTP carries hundreds of decisions, dozens of programmes, capital budgets that can run into the billions, six to eight strategic priorities, and statutory consultation obligations that compress the public conversation into a tight window. The Consultation Document has to be readable in five minutes on a phone — and sat with for an hour by an engaged ratepayer. The accompanying full plan has to satisfy auditors, elected members, statutory reporting standards and the legal threshold for adoption.

What a good comms partnership delivers

• The Consultation Document — designed to be read on a phone in five minutes, or sat with for an hour
• The adopted LTP brochure, cover and document system
• An illustration system that humanises infrastructure — turns three-waters spending into something a ratepayer can picture
• Video and motion content that opens consultation and explains priorities for non-readers
• Pull-up banners, posters, rates flyers and pop-up engagement collateral for community hubs, markets and council facilities
• Social media campaigns across consultation, including thank-you and outcome series
• Presentation systems for elected members and staff briefings
• Custom infographics and graphs translating financial outcomes into one-glance visuals

When to engage a comms partner

The earlier the better — ideally 6–9 months before the consultation period opens. The communications work is shaped by the strategic priorities the council has settled on, but the strongest LTP campaigns are ones where the comms partner has been involved while priorities are still being articulated, so that complex policy decisions can be designed for legibility from the start rather than translated post-hoc.

Common questions

How much does an LTP campaign cost?

It scales with the complexity of the plan and the scope of the campaign. A full integrated campaign — document design, illustration system, video, outdoor, social, engagement collateral, presentation systems — for a mid-to-large council typically runs $80k–$250k. Smaller territorial authorities run leaner. Larger metro councils run heavier.

Can a comms partner work alongside our internal team?

Yes — that’s how the strongest LTP partnerships work. Internal communications, policy and community engagement teams hold the operational expertise. The agency brings creative discipline, document design, illustration, video, and the day-to-day capacity an LTP cycle demands.

What about Te Tiriti and bilingual delivery?

The Local Government Act’s 2022 amendments and the Treaty principles built into local government practice mean LTPs are increasingly designed and consulted on bilingually. We design bilingually as a default and have led Te Ao Māori-grounded co-design across our public-sector portfolio.

An example: Hutt City Council’s 2021–2031 Long Term Plan

We delivered the integrated creative campaign for Hutt City Council’s 2021–2031 LTP — a $1.5 billion capital programme covering three waters infrastructure, transport (including the Cross Valley Connection), RiverLink and the rebuild of Naenae Pool. The campaign ran across digital, print, video, social, outdoor and in-person engagement, and council formally adopted the plan on schedule in June 2021. Read the full case study.

Working with us

Obvious is a Wellington-based brand-strategy, creative and advertising agency working with councils, Crown entities and the public sector across Aotearoa. See our public-sector page or start a conversation about your next LTP.