The review said $15 million-$37m could be found by cutting staff to \u201cright-size\u201d the council.<\/p>\n
The number of staff employed at the council has remained fairly stagnant in recent years, sitting at around 1800 since 2020, but the council\u2019s wage bill has increased by more than $15 million over that period.<\/p>\n
Prosser called in consultancy firm Deloitte in August to take a critical look at the state of the organisation.<\/p>\n
Some changes have already been made, with 58 roles removed in recent months.<\/p>\n
It is understood most of those were vacant with only one person leaving the council as a result.<\/p>\n
Better financial oversight, which the report describes as spend optimisation, could see $21m-$42min savings.<\/p>\n
A reduction in the number of managers at the council by between 69 and 117 would save ratepayers up to $16.8m.<\/p>\n
The council could also implement somewhat of a sinking-lid policy, to only fill 50% of vacant positions.<\/p>\n
It would be a reduction of 117 roles, saving $11.8m.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe face some major challenges, but we are determined to do better, and we will,\u201d Prosser said in a statement. <\/p>\n
Wellington City Council CEO Matt Prosser.<\/p>\n
Some of Deloitte\u2019s recommendations will be at odds with the wishes of voters and the decisions previously made by the Council, Prosser said.<\/p>\n
While many changes will be able to be made at an operational level, large-scale changes like cutting services would likely have to go before the council. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important we don\u2019t get ahead of the democratic decision processes at the heart of local government. We will critically assess everything in the report against the needs and aspirations of our communities.\u201d <\/p>\n
Duplication of roles was identified as an organisation-wide issue in the report, with 48 positions in the firing line, most from the planning and project management teams. Cuts to those roles could save the council $6.2m.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe rationale for Council involvement in the provision of services, particularly where private providers are active, lacks strategic clarity or clear financial analysis\u201d it states.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are opportunities to generate more revenue from uncollected debt, commercial partnerships, and charges for services\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Public Service Association (PSA) is calling for the report to be rejected, calling it a \u201cflimsy PowerPoint presentation that lacks any depth\u201d. <\/p>\n
PSA national secretary Duane Leo said in a statement that cutting nearly one in five staff is \u201cslash-and-burn cost-cutting, not a serious analysis of how to improve the council\u2019s operations\u201d.<\/p>\n
Leo said it is \u201cbased on crude benchmarking that ignores Wellington provides services many other councils don\u2019t, including social housing, city safety programmes and addressing homelessness\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt also ignores the fact an extra 22,000 people come into the city every day for work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ethan Manera<\/a> is a Wellington-based journalist covering Wellington issues, local politics and business in the capital. He can be emailed at ethan.manera@nzme.co.nz<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The review said $15 million-$37m could be found by cutting staff to \u201cright-size\u201d the council. The number of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[101372,806,3595,2199,5205,10666,21556,3112,13739,120,5342,111,43,139,69,101373,101371,98709,38957,762,52,102],"class_list":["post-152149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-101372","tag-as","tag-by","tag-city","tag-council","tag-cuts","tag-independent","tag-job","tag-largescale","tag-likely","tag-losses","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-organisationwide","tag-overstaffed","tag-recommending","tag-recommends","tag-review","tag-wellington","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}