Coast council staff increase defended

Nicole Mathewson Reporter from The Press

By local democracy reporter Brendon McMahon:

An increase in staff numbers to nearly 90 at the West Coast Regional Council is defensible, says its chief executive.

It follows finger pointing by former chairperson Allan Birchfield who tried to pin down CEO Darryl Lew during an April meeting on the exact number of staff he employed.

This week Birchfield said the figure was around 60 back in April 2022 at council, including West Coast Civil Defence Emergency Management staff.

Lew initially said the number of staff was somewhere in the 70s before acknowledging it was nearer 80; he promised to forward the exact numbers after the meeting.

On April 16, Lew said any suggestion of a significant increase of staff at the small council is not credible.

"I reject that the staff numbers in this organisation have increased significantly. They have not.

"This organisation has been carrying a substantial vacuum and in the past has had trouble recruiting. As a result I have had to employ contractors."

That practice going back several years had never been sustainable.
"It had got out of balance here because of the lack of ability to recruit."

Lew confirmed the council has 66 full-time staff, 17 part-time staff, and five casuals.

The council has struggled to retain or recruit staff for several years including having three chief executives in three years when Birchfield was chairperson, prior to his sacking a year ago.

Lew arrived at council last June as the fourth chief executive in four years.

Meanwhile, the elected council confirmed a policy of returning to in-house direct employment rather than relying on external contractors to plug gaps, particularly as it had to prove to Government it could manage the large Westport flood resilience contract build.

Lew said it was not easy to quantify the use of contractors in proportion to the permanent positions council needed but had been unable to fill.

"It's a very difficult question because they come in for projects and then go: it's a point in time."

However, Lew said the council was working towards having the expertise permanently on board.

"As a general trend, this organisation has been using over its history, and before I arrived, more contractors than I am comfortable with.

"Some have come with a very large price. For our ratepayers, its better and much more advantageous if we can employ in-house because it comes at a lessor cost," Lew said.

He said council would still need to employ contractors for specialised areas from time to time.

LDR has previously requested the cost to council of employing contractors. The council in a response early this year to a Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act request said the costs and numbers were difficult to separate from the CAPEX of council projects.

Lew said council recruiting had turned a corner in the past nine months and it was now "highly successful" in attracting "the right talent" across the organisation.

For example, the council has gone from having no in-house finance team last June to having four chartered accountants on staff.

Lew said the council also had its first charted engineer on board for at least 30 years. Senior engineering team leader Peter Blackwood, who is domiciled in the Bay of Plenty, is coming to council to lead a renewed in-house team.

Aaron Prendergast of the central North Island will continue act as corporate services manager for the first year of the 2024-34 Long Term Plan.

He has been consulting for council on its audit, systems review and Long Term Process since last year.