Auckland Council redundancies: Up to 160 jobs to go in restructure

Auckland Council chief executive Stephen Town says up to 160 jobs would go in the next year. Photo / File

Auckland Council has started a restructure of back-house staff that is expected to lead to the loss of between 100 and 160 staff over the next year.

Council chief executive Stephen Town said it was not a "big bang" restructure, but would take place over several months.

"These are real people and we will be supporting them," Town said.

As well as staff losses, Town said the council will be hiring more frontline staff in the regulatory area and for new community facilities like the new library at Westgate which has created 15 new jobs.

He said total council staff numbers would rise from 6548 fulltime equivalents at the end of the 2018-2019 financial year to between 6600 and 6700 during the current financial year.

"In reality this means that over the next 10 months we will look to reduce roles in some areas of the organisation in order to meet our FTE and budget targets this financial year and make room for growth in our frontline and delivery services," Town said.

He said the forecasted potential redundancies over the next 12 months would equate to about 1.5 per cent of the council's workforce.

The redundancies, Town said, would be achieved by removing vacancies and natural attrition.

"It will also mean the disestablishment of some roles and changes to reporting lines in some cases," he said.

Members of the leadership team would work with their divisions and departments over the next few months about what this would mean for teams and individuals.

Town acknowledged that change "can be difficult" and said the council would do everything it could to support those affected.

In the past year, Auckland Council invested $2 billion throughout the region and is earmarked to invest a total of $26 billion through its 10-year Budget.