Cera staff leaving in droves

The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (Cera) is losing dozens of staff members, prompting fears of a leadership ‘‘black hole’’.

Cera has had 27 fixed-term staff resign ahead of their contract ending in April next year, and shed seven more last week.

The Christchurch Central Development Unit (CCDU) lost 11 employees on a total of 124 staff. These included the unit’s former director Warwick Isaacs and its general commercial manager Ben King.

On top of that, Cera ‘‘disestablished’’ 14 positions last week. Six staff were given different roles in the organisation but seven had not yet been redeployed, Cera said.

The organisation has 341 fixedterm staff.

The legislation behind Cera, the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act (CER Act) expires in April next year.

A draft transition plan outlining the future of the organisation was due in April this year but the deadline was missed.

Chief executive John Ombler said the draft recovery plan would be publicly notified ‘‘in the near future’’.

Labour spokesperson for the Canterbury earthquake recovery Ruth Dyson said Cera seemed to have ‘‘no planning for what’s going to happen’’ and feared the recovery leadership would be left with ‘‘a black hole’’.

She was worried the organisation would struggle to find appropriately skilled staff to replace the ones who had left.

Cera mentioned struggles recruiting ‘‘suitably capable and experienced staff’’ in its last annual report.

However, Ombler said on Friday that Cera ‘‘had not found it difficult at all to find skilled staff and replace those who have left’’.

Some roles within the organisation had changed or been disestablished ‘‘to best position Cera for its ongoing work and the coming transition’’, he said.

Cera was set up in 2011, under legislation that granted special powers to both the authority and the earthquake recovery minister because of the recovery task Christchurch faced. Those powers expire in April 2016.