Let’s Get Wellington Moving plan a failure, report says

WELLINGTON: A scathing review into Wellington’s $6.4 billion transport programme has found it is at risk of failure, has a detrimental culture and was underresourced from the outset.

The internal report, titled Health Check looked into Let’s Get Wellington Moving (LGWM) and its plans to develop a better transport system for the city.

The LGWM’s aim is to ease the capital’s congestion woes by building rapid transit from the city to the airport, improving public transport and cycleways and easing traffic choke points on arterial routes.

A review found it was at risk of failing to deliver an integrated, cohesive, prioritised and outcomesdriven package.

It described the programme as ‘‘being processdriven’’ with a ‘‘bottom up approach’’.

‘‘Capability gaps and underresourcing have exacerbated the problem. There is no single point of failure, but critical improvements must be made across several areas.’’

It said the team was never adequately resourced and key roles had remained vacant or were only filled on a temporary basis.

‘‘Our principal finding from a people perspective is that the programme was not set up for success from the outset.

‘‘The programme’s current brand value in the market has meant that attracting and retaining talent is challenging.’’

The report said LGWM’s brand is currently diminished due to perceived lack of delivery and future uncertainty.

The report also noted there was a proven lack of experience within the team which had no expertise in delivering a complex, largescale programme and a ‘‘strategic leadership vacuum’’.

The Health Check described the current culture as ‘‘detrimental to a collaborative and productive working environment’’ between the partners involved in LGWM.

It said people working on projects had an ‘‘us versus them’’ mentality and described the culture as combative in which they were wary of putting their views forward.

The report found LGWM needed to pause to enable proper discipline to be implemented, and to be better resourced.

‘‘We note that the recommendations in this report will lead to an adjusted LGWM programme in terms of timeframes, scope and cost. However, we consider this is preferable to the risk of failure to deliver the desired outcomes under the current approach.’’

The programme, a joint initiative between the Government, Wellington City Council, Greater Wellington Regional Council and Waka Kotahi, lacked trust. — RNZ