The Star: November 30, 2023

Thursday November 30 2023 The Star
Latest Canterbury news at starnews.co.nz
NEWS 9
Plan to fix council shortcomings
• By Niva Chittock
STEP DOWN: Dawn Baxendale, Leah Scales, Jane Davis and Helen Beaumont all tendered
their resignations in the past five months.
THE CITY council has released
an action plan to address the
shortcomings found in an
independent report into its Three
Waters department.
The author of the report,
consultancy KPMG, found the
department had dozens more
positions than budgeted for and
had racked up a $6.5 million
staffing cost blow out since July
2019.
In response, the city council
said key staff had developed an
action plan to improve its systems
and try to prevent similar
situations in future.
“The council is currently
undertaking a significant level
of work to actively address the
planned actions based on priority
and feasibility,” it said in a
statement.
The plan addresses 15 findings
in the KPMG report with more
than 30 planned actions.
Nine were considered high
priority, and all were to be in
place by the end of September
2024. They included “annual
training on minute-taking” for
all executive support staff, and
training on how to use employment
forms correctly for all staff
who use them.
Educating staff on the difference
between operating expenditure
and capital expenditure,
formally defining job positions
and ensuring the master council
job chart was up to date also had
high priority status in the action
plan.
Most areas of improvement
related to new, reviewed or
upgraded systems, namely a new
Human Resources Information
System, the city council said.
“Executive and senior leaders
at council are committed to
improve the council processes
and systems to mitigate the risks
identified,” it said.
Chief executive Dawn Baxendale
and chief financial officer
Leah Scales both tendered their
resignations last week.
Head of Three Waters Helen
Beaumont and general manager
of infrastructure, planning and
regulatory services Jane Davis
had also resigned earlier this
year.
Linwood Ward city councillor
Yani Johanson
said the public
needed reassurance
overspending
was being
prevented.
He said a
particularly
Yani
Johanson
salient point in
the independent
report for him
was a staffer saying that financial
reports in other council departments
were also of poor quality.
“The public are rightfully concerned
about the ever-increasing
costs of council, recognising
that we do have a lot of pressures,
particularly (regarding)
Three Waters where we have had
central government law reform,”
he said.
“But it’s really important at
a governance level that we do
get some reassurance from
senior management around the
robustness of other departments’
information as well.”
Johanson said he was heartened
by the improvement action
plan.
“I think there’s a number of
really important things that
(executive management) had undertaken
to address and the key
thing is to make sure that we’re
monitoring that at a governance
level, again to make sure that it’s
implemented,” he said.
The Office of the Auditor-
General has been in
contact with the city
council following the
resignation of senior
staff members and the
publication of two reports
on the management of
council assets.
Sector manager Stephanie
Macdonald-Rose
said while the office is
wanting to further understand
the city council’s
response to staffing issues,
it is not keeping a
closer eye on them than
on other councils.
She said it is “of course
interested in what the
council’s next steps
will be”.
Former council executive leadership
team member Jane Parfitt
took up the role
of interim general
manager of
infrastructure,
planning and
regulatory services
earlier this
week.
Jane Parfitt
Mayor Phil
Mauger said
via a spokesperson he had no
comment to make.
– RNZ
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