Draft policy aims to ‘sharpen up’ staff

Environment Southland chairman Nicol Horrell says a new conflict of interest policy will ‘‘sharpen everybody up’’.

At the council’s Organisational Performance and Audit Committee meeting yesterday, director of corporate services Neil Selman sought feedback from members about the proposed policy.

Horrell, who is also on the committee, said it was ‘‘good to have checks and balances in place because we [Environment Southland] operate as a monopoly and this sharpens everybody up.’’

The draft policy says employees may not be involved in the decision to appoint or employ a person with whom the employee has a personal connection, the decision to conduct business with a person or organisation with whom the employee has a personal connection, influencing or participating in a decision to award grants or contracts where the employee is connected to a person or organisation that submitted an application or tender,

Selman said conflicts of interest were covered in the staff handbook and in staff member’s terms of employment, but the new policy was ‘‘a clear, succinct policy’’, which was a combination of various practices that had been in place before.

Councillor Bruce Robertson said his experience was that conflicts of interest weren’t uncommon if councils were going to employ good people with specific skills.

‘‘We want to get a good person but sometimes there is no employment for their partner other than at the council.’’

He suggested a ‘one-up’ policy be adopted, so if a manager was dealing with a conflict of interest it was approved by their senior manager or the chief executive. ‘‘That will tidy up the approval process.’’

Cr Lloyd McCullum suggested the policy should cover several scenarios – where both partners are employed by the council, where one is and one isn’t, and where a partner could work on contract for the council. He suggested that conflicts of interest be reported to the OPAC committee which could consider what the conflict is and how it was being managed.

The draft policy will be reviewed again by the committee before it is adopted by the council.