Personal grievances claims at Tauranga, Western Bay, Bay of Plenty councils result in payouts, job losses

There have been 19 job losses linked to personal grievance claims at Tauranga City Council and Western Bay of Plenty District Council in recent years. Photo / Getty

Tauranga City Council has spent $166,000 in the past six years on personal grievance payouts.

The money was spread across 16 of 18 personal grievance claims from 2017 to 2022, resulting in 18 job losses.

In information obtained by the Bay of Plenty Times through the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act, council democracy services team leader Kath Norris said none of the claims had gone to court.

The claims were not determined to be substantiated or unsubstantiated and were resolved with confidential agreements, Norris said. No apologies were made in any of the cases.

There had been no grievances lodged so far this year.

Since 2017, one personal grievance case resulted in a job loss and no payout. The remaining other claims resulted in job losses and a total of $166,000 in payouts.

Council general manager of corporate services Alastair McNeil told the Bay of Plenty Times it did not specifically budget for personal grievance costs and any money paid out was typically awarded out of the council’s salary budget.

Asked whether the peak of claims in 2020 and 2021 was related to restructuring, McNeil said the council was not aware of any circumstances that would have led to an increase.

He said the council would prefer to have no personal grievance claims, but believed its amount was not unusual.

“Given that we have a staff turnover rate of about 15 per cent a year (which we understand is considerably lower than the national average for local authorities), an average of three grievance claims a year from a staff of around 700 staff would not be unexpected. That equates to an average of 0.4 per cent of staff per annum with a personal grievance claim, which is probably broadly similar to, or less than most large New Zealand organisations would experience.”

McNeil said personal grievance claims generally had no significant impacts on the day-to-day operations of the council as most staff were not involved.

“Typically, these matters are treated with the utmost discretion and are managed by the HR team and the relevant senior manager.”

Western Bay of Plenty District Council has had two personal grievance claims since 2017, costing $20,000 in total.

The council’s general manager of corporate services, Adele Henderson, said that in one case, the council maintained the employment relationship and no payment was made.

“The other was not substantiated by the employer, and a mutual agreement was reached to end the employment relationship via resignation, for which a $20,000 payment was made.”

There were no apologies or court processes needed.

Regional House at Bay of Plenty Regional Council's offices on Elizabeth St. Photo / George Novak

At Bay of Plenty Regional Council, six personal grievance claims were made to date since 2017.

Karen Aspey, general manager of people and leadership, said one claim was received outside the 90-day timeframe allowed, so it was not accepted by the council.

Aspey said another four were resolved on a strictly confidential basis, a fifth was not pursued further once it was considered as “being out of time”, and a sixth did not result in any resolution.

“One employee’s employment ended as an indirect result of the personal grievance claims.”

None of the claims were substantiated or resulted in any apologies or court processes.

The council refused to break down any further detail of the claims, including how much money was paid out to the four “resolved” claims. It said it was “necessary” to withhold the information to prevent potential prejudice of its commercial position in the employment market; protect the public interest; and enable the council to carry on without prejudice in negotiations.

The Bay of Plenty Times has referred the refusal to the Ombudsman.

Tauranga barrister Mark Beech said that given the size of councils, the number of personal grievances resolved was not surprising, especially if any had gone through structural changes.

“Councils also have large diverse workforces, so they are complex workplaces.”

Beech, who specialises in commercial litigation, employment disputes and other workplace disputes, said he believed many council employees would be well-renumerated - particularly in management roles that may account for the quantum of some of the settlements.

Tauranga barrister Mark Beech. Photo / John Borren

In reference to the lack of apologies in the cases, Beech said there was no ability to legally compel a party to apologise. However, there were, in general, many records of settlements that could contain apologies or acknowledgements that “things could have been dealt with differently”.

“The fact that several cases didn’t proceed to court is perhaps a testament to the effectiveness of the employers’ dispute resolution processes and or the effectiveness of the ... mediations. The settlement rates could also indicate that the parties do not wish to incur the costs associated with litigation and or assume the litigation risk,” Beech said.

“Based on my experience, many parties simply chose to enter commercially pragmatic arrangements - especially if the employment relationship has ended.”

Beech said his personal observation was that personal grievance processes could be stressful for both the employer and employees as employment litigation largely involved relationship issues, including reputation, performance, value, treatment and fault.

The Public Services Association union regularly supports members experiencing employment relationship problems and represents them through what its boss said could be a stressful process to resolve disputes.

National sector leader Ian Gordon said these could range from low-level issues to matters requiring involving, for example, dismissal, discrimination, sexual harassment or adverse treatment.

Gordon said it was common for disputes and personal grievances to be resolved by agreement, including at meditation, which can involve some form of compensatory payment in lieu of wages and contractual and statutory entitlements.

“Mediation is the primary early-stage resolution process under law. Less common is for matters to go to the Employment Relations Authority or Employment Court,” Gordon said.

“Generally speaking, the amounts paid by these organisations (over the time period indicated/numbers indicated) are not out of the ordinary, and it’s likely that some of these settlements were lodged as personal grievances and resolved as settlements arrived at through a confidential mediation process.”

Personal grievances were typically made if an employee felt there had been an unjustified dismissal, unjustified advantage (actions an employer has unjustifiably taken to put an employee at a disadvantage), discrimination, racial harassment, sexual harassment, or duress.