Plan for Auckland supercity revealed

The unions are happy that top level managers, strategist and policy boffins will bear the brunt of the shakeup which will create the new Auckland supercity.

The master plan for creating the new super Auckland City was revealed today by the Auckland Transition Agency (ATA), in charge of creating the supercity, with expected bad news for some staff to face redundancy.

There are around 7000 Aucklanders employed by the existing city and district councils in Auckland.

As expected, management and staff whose jobs are involved with strategy, policy and planning today got the bad news - they "are likely to be involved in significant change as these functions will generally be centralised."

But there is good news, for now, for lower ranks.

The ATA said it did not intend "generally to review staff numbers or roles of staff whose jobs are specific to particular community facilities such as libraries, parks and recreational facilities."

Also off the hook for now are staff whose jobs are "specific to particular operational work in community services such as social housing; local community development and funding; youth, safety and other community programmes and initiatives; and local events; or in infrastructural services such as stormwater, transport and water services".

Staff who deal directly with customers will generally remain in their current locations. This includes customer services and regulatory services staff.

The Public Service Association which has 2600 members working for Auckland's eight local authorities and council controlled organisations said it was pleased.

"Aucklanders rely on their local government workers to provide a wide range of services like clean water, reliable roads, rubbish and waste water removal, libraries, parks and other recreational facilities," says PSA national secretary Richard Wagstaff.

"We've been highlighting the need to retain existing council workers to maintain delivery of these services when the 'supercity' is established."

"We've made this point to the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance, the 'supercity' select committee and in recent months to the transition agency."  

"We're pleased the agency has listened to us and the document its released today reflects the need to retain Auckland's local government workers to maintain the delivery of vital services to Aucklanders."

"It's good to see the agency says decisions on staffing will reflect a commitment to maintaining or improving current local government service levels and activities."

But Manukau Mayor Len Brown says the discussion document released this afternoon sends a mixed message.

"In terms of what I have seen so far from the documents, it appears to be a traditional design of policy and provider split and in terms of content it is a mixture of the good, the bad and the missing," says Mr Brown.

"While the release of the documents provides greater clarity for staff, there are still areas that need to be clarified, particularly around Council Controlled Organisations (CCOs) and Transport.

Mr Brown says the absence of a clear picture around CCOs and Transport is a major concern.

"I had hoped to see evidence of a much stronger link to democratic governance and the organisation, which between them are responsible for hundreds of millions of rates funding. I would be happier if there was leadership evident at the top table in terms of the social, environmental, economic and cultural wellbeings and that this was reflected in the proposed structure.

"I'm also concerned about how the new structure connects to the local boards and the communities.  There is no obvious connection under the proposed structure.

"While this document is a start, there is still a lot of work to be done and there will be more input into this process over coming weeks.

ATA Executive Chairman Mark Ford said in the plans: "The individual impact of staff reductions will be minimised wherever possible by the use of less disruptive approaches, such as attrition, appointment in alternative roles, and voluntary redundancy.

He also says: "We are committed to a fair, transparent change process and we continue to seek the knowledge and expertise of you and your staff to get this right. As much information as practicable will continue to be communicated in a clear and timely way so that those affected by change can make informed decisions."

Until now the focus has been on the political make-up but local authority expert Dr Grant Hewison of Kensington Swan said: "In some respects I think this structural outline is going to be more important."

There is a tight 12-month timeframe to complete the nearly 1000 individual projects needed to ready the council for a November 1, 2010 start following October elections.

Amongst other moves revealed today:

The political carve up of Auckland had already decided the city would be divided into two tiers - the main council and local boards - local Boards will be looked after by a specifically tagged "Manager - Local Board Services" who will report into the Chief Finance Officer.

The mayor also has a stand alone office which has its own chief of staff, communications and strategy specialists.

Support functions like finance and HR will be are centralised, whereas front line staff that deal with ratepayers will be left in the suburbs.

It has not been finally decided where centralised staff in the new supercity will work - the plans says the location of the new super Transport Agency will be key, as this will free up space in the existing council locations.

Once the plan has been discussed with the councils and staff an update is planned by January 2010.

Once the new organisational structure is finalised, all existing staff will be "mapped to the relevant part of the structure". Those that don't fit will be offered new jobs or redundancy.

- © Fairfax NZ News