Wellington City Council is looking at the council's staffing and services. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Wellington City Council is looking at the council's staffing and services. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Thirty roles are on the chopping block at Wellington City Council, but further cuts are expected amid an external review of council operations.
The council’s new CEO, Matt Prosser, has called in consultancy firm Deloitte to undertake a wide-ranging review into the council’s operations, dubbed “Future-Fit Pōneke”.
The Herald understandsstaff are currently in the process of being interviewed by Deloitte about council functions and the report could spell significant changes to council services and staffing levels.
It comes amid news of a proposed restructure to its Customer and Community Group, mostly impacting managerial staff.
The cuts came as a surprise to councillors, who were not briefed on the issue until today, following news breaking on the restructure yesterday.
An email to councillors from chief operating officer James Roberts, seen by the Herald, said he had been reviewing the Customer and Community Group’s operations over the past few months.
Among the aims of the restructure was to “enable service improvement and workflow optimisation across the organisation by emphasising service and process re-design, powered by digital automation and AI [artificial intelligence] technology”.
Roberts said discussions had happened with all but one staff member impacted.
“While I had intended to inform you of this proposal after that discussion, news of the proposal has been leaked to the media, so I wanted to ensure you had a heads-up of this news,” he said.
The Deloitte work has been in the works “for about a month, but it is not complete and will not be for some time”, a council spokesman said in a statement.
Prosser, who started as CEO earlier this year, would not be interviewed about the Future-Fit Pōneke plan.
Wellington City Council CEO Matt Prosser.
The council would not confirm how much it would cost but said it is funded through savings from a number of vacant staff roles.
“When we have a report from Deloitte, we will initially discuss it with the new mayor and council as well as staff,” the spokesman said.
“The Customer and Community Group restructure is not connected to the Deloitte work – the C&C change process has been under way since the start of the year."
The council plans to work with staff whose roles are cut to explore any other opportunities available within the council.
The Customer and Community Group is made up of 1200 staff, out of the council’s 1800 total headcount.
Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau said she and councillors met with Prosser this morning, who confirmed the changes to the Customer and Community Group would only mean “a net effect of one job loss”.
The Public Service Association (PSA) is calling on the council to withdraw the restructure, taking issue with the timing, which comes just weeks before the local elections.
PSA National Secretary Fleur Fitzsimons said she would be writing to Prosser, calling for it to be stopped.
“The proposals would mean the loss of specialist expertise in parks, recreation and city safety, to name a few, and would result in unmanageable workloads for those who remain,” Fitzsimons said.
“The timeline currently has final decision documents being released three days after the local election. This is deeply wrong.”
Fitzsimons also alleged the proposal document includes “a number of serious mistakes” regarding reporting lines and other key details.
“Our members are asking whether it has been written by AI,” she said.
The number of staff employed at the council has remained fairly stagnant in recent years, sitting at around 1800 since 2020, but the council’s wage bill has increased by more than $15 million over that period.
Ethan Manera is a Wellington-based journalist covering Wellington issues, local politics and business in the capital. He can be emailed at ethan.manera@nzme.co.nz.
