Moving centre the ‘right call’

Controversial Christchurch City Council boss Tony Marryatt has admitted he should have told councillors earlier about moving its after-hours call centre to Palmerston North.

However, in a letter to councillors who complained, he insists it was an ‘‘operational decision’’ that required no input from elected members.

The city council has signed an agreement with the Palmerston North City Council to take over the running of its after-hours call centre from Tuesday.

Crs Yani Johanson, Sally Buck, Glenn Livingstone, Tim Carter, Helen Broughton, Jamie Gough and Jimmy Chen, and 13 community board members, wrote a letter to Marryatt in mid-january objecting to their lack of involvement in the decision and asking him to review it.

Johanson wrote that it was unacceptable for councillors to have found out about the move through a letter to the editor in The Press.

Marryatt emailed a response on Wednesday.

‘‘I advise that my review has done nothing other than confirm that the correct decision was made,’’ he said.

The reasons for the decision were:

Current after-hours callcentre provider, lines company Orion New Zealand, said it could not cope with council calls after an earthquake because it was often inundated with its own post-quake calls

It was felt sensible to have a call centre outside the city that would be unaffected during any Christchurch emergency

It was difficult to fully staff the Christchurch call centre after quakes because of the stress staff were under

The Palmerston North council provided the after-hours service for 27 other councils around the country and had worked for the Christchurch council after last year’s February 22 quake.

Marryatt agreed his council should do ‘‘everything in its power’’ to create and retain local jobs, but said ‘‘we still have to do the right thing for the whole community’’.

Marryatt disagreed with Johanson’s view that the future of the call centre was a policy decision that should have involved councillors.

‘‘In my opinion this is an operational decision. Council has agreed levels of service concerning our call-centre operation.

‘‘All we are trying to do is ensure that we meet these levels of service for our residents,’’ Marryatt said.

‘‘I agree with your comment around finding out about the review [that] staff were undertaking via a letter to the editor. Our intention was to advise council when the new contract had been signed. With the benefit of hindsight we should have told you earlier.’’

Johanson told The Press yesterday it was still not clear exactly when the contract had been signed.