However, chief financial officer Gary Connolly warned against interpreting the $239.1m figure as policy breaches.<\/p>\n
He pointed to the Peacocke development as an example, where professional services were procured through a defined services panel that had already gone through a competitive tender process.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce they do the work they do not put it through the tender process again. These procurements have gone through the correct process.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be dangerous to interpret that the $239m means that much has been done outside of policy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Connolly said KPMG\u2019s main observation when the assessment was submitted related to the challenges of operating a mature procurement system within a decentralised model, \u201cwhich meant we had tried to empower our organisation to deliver to its capital programme while still maintaining compliance policy\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I looked at the procurement assessment, I judged that the most important thing to be successful in implementing the changes that are required would be to engage across the organisation \u2013 bring the organisation together to decide what improvements [are] necessarily needed to be made. I think that was the right path.\u201d<\/p>\n
Connolly also clarified that when the report was first presented in 2024, the Strategic Risk and Assurance Committee was chaired by an independent chairperson, not an elected member.<\/p>\n
Hamilton City Council chief executive Lance Vervoort. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n
Chief executive Lance Vervoort said KPMG\u2019s recommendations amounted to major structural change.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were talking about changing the entire procurement system \u2013 and that will take a little bit of time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Finance and Assurance Committee chairwoman Rachel Karalus said the council\u2019s priority was strengthening governance rather than assigning blame.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to ensure and assure elected members and the public that, of course, if anything comes up during this process that warrants a closer look or another formal process, then that opportunity exists, and good governance would demand that it should follow and will follow. But for now, the focus of this discussion is not on finding fault.\u201d<\/p>\n
Councillor Sue Moroney. Photo \/ Natalie Akoorie<\/p>\n
Councillor Sue Moroney agreed, saying the focus should be on improvement rather than blame.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we do next is the most important thing. What was done in the past is something we can learn from,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Moroney said the debate was also about sending a clear message to suppliers and community service providers in what she described as the country\u2019s \u201csoon-to-be third-largest city\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ratepayers of Hamilton Kirikiriroa are not a cash cow for your private profit and deserve the very best of services going forward,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Councillor Andrew Bydder said the new council intended to confront issues openly.<\/p>\n
\u201cReleasing these reports is not a witch hunt. It will take time to learn better systems,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Bydder and deputy chairman of procurement Graeme Mead have already met with staff as part of early reform discussions.<\/p>\n
Connolly said improvements were already underway, including new measures to report and extract insights from procurement data, but he could not point to an analysis showing a \u201cquantified\u201d improvement.<\/p>\n
He said the pace of reform had been influenced by the council focusing on other major priorities, including the IAWAI \u2013 Flowing Waters transfer \u2013 not because of a lack of resources within the procurement team.<\/p>\n
Councillors will now prioritise which of KPMG\u2019s 35 recommendations can be delivered quickly, while planning longer-term structural changes.<\/p>\n
Tom Eley is a multimedia journalist at the Waikato Herald. Before he joined the Hamilton-based team, he worked for the Weekend Sun and Sunlive. He previously worked as a journalist at Black Press Media in Canada and won a fellowship with the Vancouver Sun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"However, chief financial officer Gary Connolly warned against interpreting the $239.1m figure as policy breaches. He pointed to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13991,17248,166680,166679,74,41666,1567,1863,5432,2199,51179,26519,6288,305,21556,30760,1132,111,43,139,69,5493,5256,52046,9364,8263,12860,762,17178,87980,3608,1339],"class_list":{"0":"post-304457","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-13991","9":"tag-17248","10":"tag-166680","11":"tag-239m","12":"tag-after","13":"tag-audit","14":"tag-awarded","15":"tag-back","16":"tag-between","17":"tag-city","18":"tag-contracts","19":"tag-councillors","20":"tag-hamilton","21":"tag-have","22":"tag-independent","23":"tag-kpmg","24":"tag-million","25":"tag-new-zealand","26":"tag-news","27":"tag-newzealand","28":"tag-nz","29":"tag-open","30":"tag-overhaul","31":"tag-pledged","32":"tag-procurement","33":"tag-reforms","34":"tag-revealed","35":"tag-review","36":"tag-systems","37":"tag-tender","38":"tag-were","39":"tag-without"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304457","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=304457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}