Jobs on line in council revamp
More change needed to make council ‘‘fit for future’’, says chief executive.
Jobs could be on the line at the Christchurch City Council as chief executive Karleen Edwards readies the organisation to take back control of the city.
Edwards has announced plans to conduct a major restructuring of the organisation to cut bureaucracy and ensure it is ready to regain leadership of the city when the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (Cera) bows out.
The restructure will look at the roles of all management and support function staff but will not affect frontline council staff nor staff employed by councilcontrolled organisations like V-Base. Exactly how many jobs will be affected will not be known until Edwards releases a change proposal to staff next month.
More than 2570 people work at the Christchurch City Council in a mix of full-time, part-time and casual roles, making it one of the biggest employers in the city.
Edwards, whose Great for Christchurch programme has already identified $40 million in operational savings, said she recognised significant changes had been made to the council’s structure after the departure of her predecessor Tony Marryatt, but she felt more change was needed.
‘‘Since I took on this job a year ago, I have spent a lot of time with teams across the organisation, looking at the ways they work and how we interact with our residents. I’ve also been out and about a lot, talking with residents, communities, businesses, customers and stakeholders. I do not believe that with our current structure and ways of working we will get to the point that we need to, and where the people of Christchurch need us to be, without some significant changes,’’ Edwards said.
The council needed to do better for the city and its residents and to do so it needed the right structure and the right ways of working. The restructure was not just about saving money; it was about making the council fit for the future. Consultants PWC were advising the council on how best to do that.
‘‘The proposed structure will create a more agile organisation, where the left hand knows what the right hand is doing and can respond quickly and confidently to the dynamic needs of the rebuild. The changes we make will create clear accountability, clarity of leadership, improve the services provided to the community and empower key staff to make the decisions needed to keep the rebuild moving,’’ Edwards said.
It was important the changes were made before the end of the year so the organisation was ready to regain leadership of the city when the transition from Cera was completed.
Cera is to cease existence next year and the Government is expected to release a draft transition plan within the next few weeks.
Erin Polaczuk, national secretary of the Public Service Association, which represents about 900 Christchurch City Council employees, said the council had been performing well under Edwards’ leadership and it questioned the rationale for more restructuring. Staff had ‘‘worked their guts out’’ to help get the city back on its feet after the earthquakes and they now felt the rug was being pulled from beneath them.
‘‘Any restructuring makes people feel insecure. Given the history of Christchurch it is the last thing a good employer should be doing,’’ Polaczuk said. The union would be making its views known to Edwards and hoped they would carry some weight.