Tauranga, Western Bay, Bay of Plenty regional councils’ spending on consultants revealed

Clockwise from top left: Tauranga City Council at 306 Cameron Rd. Bay of Plenty Regional Council on Elizabeth St and Western Bay of Plenty District Council. Photos / Alex Cairns and Andrew Warner

Bay of Plenty councils have spent more than $57 million on consultants in the past two financial years with financial advice, civic projects and recruiting top brass among the costliest spends.

The Bay of Plenty Times used annual reports and Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act requests to discover how much the Tauranga City, Western Bay of Plenty District, and Bay of Plenty Regional councils had spent on consultants, and for what work.

Of the $57.16m, the Tauranga City Council spent the most at $40.9m.

Annual reports showed the council spent $25.6m on consultants in the year ending 2022 and $15.3m for the year ending 2021.

The council provided the Bay of Plenty Times lists of its 10 costliest projects for those years and the months from July to October of this financial year.

These included at least $369,073 paid in two payments to an agency for work on the council’s Long-term Plan capital works programme.

These lists did not include consultants’ costs on capital and digital projects, costs paid to independent contractors or organisations which fulfilled secondments or outsourced tasks ordinarily carried out by employed staff.

A council spokeswoman said this was because historically, the council had been unable to separate consultant costs from other costs in capital projects.

She said the information provided covered operational consultancy advice.

The largest payments were $194,500 to Willis Bond and Co in 2021-2022 for the preparation and delivery of the Civic Precinct Masterplan Refresh and $210,470 to Arup New Zealand last year for help with the Long-term Plan capital works programme.

Arup NZ was also paid $158,603 the previous year, again related to the capital works programme.

WSP New Zealand received $125,638 in 2021-2022 for sportsfield feasibility assessments.

The Western Bay of Plenty District Council annual reports show “consultant and legal” spending totalling $3.08m in the year ending 2021 and $2.9m the following year.

The council also provided the Bay of Plenty Times with its 10 most expensive consultant fees for the past three calendar years.

Artist impressions of Tauranga's future civic space Te Manawataki o Te Papa. Willis Bond and Co was paid $194,500 for the preparation and delivery of the Civic Precinct Masterplan Refresh.

Much of this was spent on the recruitment of key members of the council’s executive team and software.

In 2020, $132,454.67 was spent via five payments for Scada (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) - software that gathers real-time data from remote locations such as treatment plants.

In 2021, the most expensive cost was $32,100 relating to a staff engagement survey and the use of software and data analysis for review, and the combined cost of three $21,500 payments for rating valuation services.

In 2022 to September, a combined $81,927.75 was spent on the impartial recruitment of the following roles: “chief executive”, “general manager - chief operating officer”, “general manager - corporate services”, and two payments relating to “general manager - regulatory”.

Security and software for projects such as building consents were also areas of consultant advice.

The council withheld the names of the consultants it paid citing the Privacy Act.

Local Government NZ president Stuart Crosby says there are often valid reasons why councils spend money on consultants. Photo / NZME

The Bay of Plenty Regional Council’s total spend on consultants in the past two full financial years was just over $10.28m, according to its official information response, which also included the top 10 largest spends.

Pricewaterhouse Coopers received the largest individual payment, of $380,000, for its specialist financial advisory services to review financial settings and levers, financial strategy, and treasury policies in 2020-21.

In 2020-2021, Jacobs New Zealand was paid $130,785 for specialist advice on the Rotorua groundwater modelling project.

The University of Waikato received several payments. In 2021 it received $127,500 for coastal science services provided by experts, as part of a cost share with other councils, and $77,288.91, $48,267.68, and $46,428.57 for additional coastal science services, swan grazing research, and specialist knowledge to develop a nutrient model for Tauranga Harbour.

In 2021-2022 it was paid $127,500 for coastal science services and $102,724 for an environmental science research project.

Local Government New Zealand president Stuart Crosby said generally councils spending money on consultants could be a “contentious” issue but there were often valid reasons for doing so.

Crosby, who is a Bay of Plenty regional councillor, said examples included councils needing a specific set of skills not necessarily available among staff, a need to avoid a conflict of interest in some cases such as regulation of a council asset, or that staff’s time-dependent contracts could be expiring during the time needed for a certain project. A consultant was sometimes cheaper than hiring someone with those skill sets full-time.

Another factor was many councils were already struggling for staff in a highly competitive market, he said.

“That could be across the diverse range of a council - from human relations right through to engineering. So they do fill that gap generally on a short- to medium-term basis.”

Crosby said it was largely up to elected members and council chief executives to determine how frequently consultants were used.

Taxpayers’ Union campaign manager Callum Purves said the union supported greater transparency around how much councils were spending on consultants.

“We would like to see councils proactively publish all external contracts online – similar to what happens in the UK – so that ratepayers can judge for themselves whether they are getting value for money.”