New Zealanders want more say in their community services.

A survey's found 54 per cent of people think locally controlled services would be more responsive to their needs, and 52 per cent think local people make better decisions for local needs.

The study was commissioned by Local Government New Zealand with help from the New Zealand Initiative.

Health, education and social services are amongst those they think should be controlled by local decision makers.

New Zealand Initiative Executive Director Oliver Hartwich says our central government has too much power.

"New Zealand would be much better if we devolved government services to the communities that are actually affected by these services."

Hartwich admitted to Mike Hosking that he is aware it is not a huge majority, but the survey shows a shift in the national mindset. 

"I think we're seeing a morph towards a greater acceptance of localism and probably driven also by the failure of some  highly centralised Government policies," he says, noting projects like KiwiBuild.

He also agrees that local government can make bad decisions, but he says that it is better for local people to make the right decisions for them and to be able to own the consequences themselves.

Hartwich will be speaking about this at a conference in Wellington today on giving more power back to local communities.

It will look at look services like education, health and vocational training should be controlled by local decision makers.

He says our local governments are weak by international standards.

"Local communities often know best what services they need, and sometimes local solutions are better than grand national schemes that don't typically don't work."

Hartwich says he'll also be launching a textbook today to better explain the idea of localism.