NBR – By Sally Lindsay – Friday, 30 October 2015:
Auckland Council spent $749,000 on merging Waterfront Auckland and Auckland Council property into Panuku Development Auckland – the city’s development agency.
More than $632,000 of the money was paid to consultants, while $46,000 was spent on appointing board members, management and staff and more than $70,500 went on a council controlled organisations review and preliminary work on Panuku Development Auckland’s feasibility.
The figures were released to councillor Cameron Brewer under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act. Mr Brewer says the project was internally driven and led by a capable and dedicated team of council staff, so it was surprising to see more than $632,000 was spent on external consultants for what many in the corporate world would effectively view as just another departmental merger.
“We have intellectual and project capacity within the CCO governance and external partnership team of senior council staff. They were steered by management and elected representatives and the council even formally consulted the public through the draft long term plan on this very matter.”
“Obviously that was still not enough and the council insisted on external consultants’ views as well — something it does readily and too often,” Mr Brewer says.”
He says the Panuku name was added at the very last minute without any consultation with councillors despite the council’s supposed “no surprises” policywith CCOs.
“The retort we got at the time was that it came at no extra cost. What they didn’t quite tell us was that just setting up the new CCO cost ratepayers three quarters of a million dollars, with most of that blown on external consultants dreaming up reviews and reports.”
The council says mana whenua came up with the proposed Maori names for Development Auckland and these were considered at the regular monthly hui in August. There was no additional cost for these discussions as there was no cost to develop the Panuku logo and only minimal costs to change some sig- nage and corporate stationery.
In its official response to Mr Brewer’s request for the merger costs, the council says the new CCO brings a more collaborate approach to addressing regional growth and the organisation’s ability to use council-owned landholdings means it can assemble and shape larger-scale and more integrated development opportunities.
It says the “bringing together of the two organisations has brought about significant saving,” although it did not outline what the savings were.
“In addition, the merger is also expected to offer more effective and efficient use of council resources throughout the life of the 2015-2025 long-term plan and the cost of establishing Panuku has been met within the envelope of the plan.”
Mr Brewer says most fair-minded people will think spending so much on external consultants for the internal reshuffle and refocus is over the top, particularly given how angry Auckland ratepayers are about council costs.
The council says there are legitimate start-up costs for any new organisation and there would have been expected start-up costs when Auckland Council’s governing body voted to create the new CCO.
Mr Brewer says, putting aside the costs, the “real worry now with Panuku Development Auckland is mission creep. We consulted and promised ratepayers just a few months ago that this new agency would be primarily focused on surplus council land but already it is talking about buying privately- owned land and getting ratepayers knee deep in property development.”
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