Staff losing jobs under new regime
Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown starts process of hiring his own ‘political’ team
The changing of the guard in the Auckland mayoral office will see about nine staff lose their jobs. The Herald understands they are mostly policy and communications staff hired by former mayor Phil Goff, who are on individual employment contracts with conditions that made it clear that continuity with a new mayor was not guaranteed.
New Mayor Wayne Brown has kept most of the administrative staff who worked for Goff and is in the process of hiring his own “political” staff.
Auckland Council is different from other councils across New Zealand in that the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act provides the mayor with a budget of about $5 million a year to hire his own staff and run the office independently of the council bureaucracy.
Council governance director Phil Wilson said he could not comment about the employment details of individuals, saying the council was still working through the employment arrangements with the staff from the former mayor’s office.
“The team in Mayor Goff’s office was made up of many different types of roles — from administrative roles to specialist advisers and a chief of staff.
“Political roles, which previously included the chief of staff and a director of political strategy and government relations, were mayoral appointments and fixed-term contract roles,” he said.
Wilson said the mixed employment model of political roles and staff on individual contracts lends itself to looking after staff and meeting the needs of the mayor.
“It also means that we get the right balance of continuity, retained knowledge, organisational relationships and valued experience . . . and means we can offer redeployment opportunities within the council organisation or group and redundancy options if this cannot be achieved.”
A mayoral spokesman said employment arrangements in the previous mayor’s office were the responsibility of the previous mayor and the council chief executive.