Christchurch council chief Tony Marryatt to be investigated

Tony Marryatt. Photo / Geoff Sloan

Under-fire Christchurch City Council chief executive Tony Marryatt will remain on special leave while an independent investigation is carried out into his role leading up to to the removal of the council's accreditation as a building consent authority.

The unanimous vote took place at an extraordinary council meeting this morning, Mayor Bob Parker announced this afternoon.

The council will hold another meeting on Monday, after which it will release information about the terms of reference of the inquiry and who will undertake the investigation.

Yesterday, Mr Marryatt's partner Robyn Steele said he was prevented from speaking to the media ahead of today's meeting under an agreement with the council, but he would release a statement as soon as he was able to.

APNZ was unable to contact him at his home for comment today.

International Accreditation New Zealand (IANZ) informed the local body last week that its building consent accreditation would be revoked after it failed to meet requirements.

The council officially lost its consent accreditation on Monday.

Mr Marryatt was stood down on indefinite leave last Wednesday over the consents crisis and a Crown manager was appointed.

The council's announcement comes as the Government orders an independent "diagnostic assessment'' of the council's resource management planning and resource consenting functions.

The council today welcomed the move, saying the assessment was designed to see if they were sufficiently resourced and had "suitably robust'' resource management processes in place.

It is a non-statutory assessment, and ministry staff will meet council staff and other agencies and stakeholders over the next few days to gather information.

They will then prepare a report for the minister, to be delivered in the last week of July.

The council's resource consents team operates separately from the building consent team, and does not fall under the jurisdiction of IANZ.