Council addresses cost pressures with restructure
Published on 27 November 2024
After a consultation process with staff, Whanganui District Council’s chief executive David Langford, has confirmed plans for a restructure at the council.
“While we are seeing some positive signs our economy is recovering, inflation, interest rates, increased insurance and energy costs are still putting pressure on households and businesses. The council is also facing similar increases to the cost of delivering services for the community,” says Langford.
“The community expects the council to be an efficient organisation and to do everything we can to avoid passing increased costs on to the ratepayers."
He says, “The restructure proposal has largely focused on reducing the number of management roles while trying to minimise impacts on front-line service delivery. The number of executive managers will reduce from five to four and a number of senior management roles will also be disestablished.
“The restructure disestablishes a number of current roles in addition to the vacant positions removed as part of our Vacancy Management Programme.
“In total, 31 positions have been disestablished and will be replaced with just 10 new positions.”
The restructure and vacancy management processes are expected to deliver total annual savings of approximately $2.1m. This is in addition to a number of job cuts made earlier this year that resulted in $680k of annual savings.
The restructure isn’t just about cutting costs, says Langford.
“Realigning the various teams and departments within the council into new groups is also expected to improve the organisation’s performance.”
In addition to cutting costs, Langford says there are three key objectives:
- Building a high performing, customer focused culture with the council
- Effective and efficient service delivery
- Building public trust
“The restructure is expected to make it easier for departments across the council to work together in a more coordinated way. This will also make it easier for people and businesses to work with the council.”
He says, “The restructure also brings our venues and events Team, Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery and NZ Glassworks together with the tourism and visitor industries team, which used to be part of Whanganui & Partners. This creates a one-stop-shop for all things related to visitor experiences in Whanganui.
“This will position the council to help accelerate the growth of the tourism and hospitality sectors of our economy and make sure Whanganui continues to have a lively events scene.”
David Langford says restructures are always difficult for staff. “It is a distressing time for people whose jobs are being made redundant. I would like to acknowledge and thank those staff leaving the council for their years of dedication and hard work in service to the Whanganui community.”
Mayor Andrew Tripe says the restructure is about making the tough calls and doing the right thing for the community.
“In 2022, one of my five campaign focus areas was for a more ‘streamlined and efficient council’. The reality at the time was that the headwinds of challenge in our community were starting to blow and we have seen rates around the country increase significantly. This burden on ratepayers is not sustainable.”
The council introduced a six-point plan to keep rates affordable in early 2023 and the restructure is the latest initiative by the chief executive under this plan.
Mayor Andrew says, “This year’s budgets include just over $13.4m of financial targets for the chief executive to meet. This includes targets for finding efficiency savings, increasing the council’s non-rates revenue, and securing alternative funding sources. I’m pleased to see the chief executive and his teams are working hard and making good progress towards meeting these targets.”