Slimmed down city has 525 job openings

Photo / Doug Sherring.

The Super City has 525 job vacancies only months after more than 1200 staff were trimmed from the previous Auckland councils.

The Auckland Council and seven council-controlled organisations (CCOs) have 7478 staff against a target of 8003.

Of the 7478 staff, there are 680 contractors on the payroll, including 320 working in finance and information technology roles, where there are demands supporting old and new computer systems.

The team of 578 staff in the planning and policy division at the Auckland Council has 230 vacancies, although chief planning officer Dr Roger Blakeley said he was in the process of recruiting 56 staff.

Auckland Council chief executive Doug McKay yesterday described the staffing situation as "adequate", saying things could not be expected to be up to par six weeks into the largest transformation in New Zealand history.

Mr McKay said there had been no breakdowns due to a lack of staff, but insisted the vacant positions were all needed, particularly next year with the Rugby World Cup and developing the Auckland Plan, a long-term blueprint for the city.

Last September, the agency designing the Super City trimmed staff numbers of the previous eight councils and their subsidiaries from 9430 to 8207 and predicted another 300 on transition-related contract work would reduce the size of the Super City to 7907 staff by July 2012.

The Auckland Transition Agency predicted the wages bill would go from $604 million to $513 million as a result of reducing staff numbers.

Since the Super City came into being on November 1, council staff have discovered a number of staff changes "that present a degree of risk to the council".

They include higher than planned vacancies, fixed-term and contract staff being engaged to fill vacancies and hiring decisions being made in the absence of full budget information.

Senior finance staff are trying to understand the financial consequences of these changes and warned of budget changes.

"It is too early to indicate the size or direction of this adjustment," the officers said in a report to the strategy and finance committee on Monday.

Mr McKay said the transition agency's forecast of 300 contractors at the outset of the Super City only related to former council staff going on fixed-term contracts to carry out transition-related work.

The reason the Super City had 680 contractors was a flow-over of people already on contract work at the previous councils, he said.

There had been three cases of people being re-employed with fulltime jobs at the Super City who had paid back their redundancy money, he said.