A Christchurch firm will charge $250 an hour, as a mediator, to take the steam out of an Otago Regional Council situation seemingly ready to boil over.
A council spokesman said Culture by Design would conduct separate interviews with the council’s five general managers, chief executive Sarah Gardner and its 11 councillors, including chairman Andrew Noone.
Those interviews could then be followed by a group session — or sessions — before a "forward plan" was developed, the spokesman said.
The council had not yet determined how long the firm would be engaged by the council, and the forward plan was "unpriced", he said.
The mediation was agreed to in a public-excluded session added to the agenda of a committee meeting "as a matter of urgency" by Mr Noone last week.
He said later councillors and the executive leadership were in unanimous agreement about the need to improve relationships.
Mrs Gardner at the start of the month said tension between staff and councillors was affecting the organisation’s work.
Earlier, she said councillors’ decision-making creating extra work for staff was a serious problem after a general manager rubbished a councillor’s proposal in a public meeting.
Meanwhile, councillors have launched an independent investigation into staff actions after learning staff declined to take part in an Environmental Protection Authority investigation last year.
A review of the councillors’ code of conduct will begin shortly, too, after it was found not fit for purpose when Mrs Gardner complained deputy chairman Michael Laws’ media commentary endangered staff.
The scope of the code of conduct review itself created intense debate between the two last week and their disagreement resulted in a video review of a previous decision.
That disagreement was sparked when Mrs Gardner presented a protocol that said councillors contacting staff other than a general manager or herself about council business would be a breach of the code of conduct.
The mediation was agreed to behind closed doors later that day.
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Comments
Every day ORC seems to invent a new way of wasting ratepayers money! This mediation party should be cancelled! We expect Councillors and the Executive to behave like grownups and justify the hundreds of thousands of dollars paid to them in salaries and benefits. Unfortunately over the last four years their performance points only one way- get rid of them!
Unbelievable? How silly can these people get? Do they really need to bring someone down from Christchurch to sort out their childish spat? Is this value for money and good use of our rates from people who are supposed to be professionals?
I can see very little that ORC has contributed to Otago over the last four years as being value for money! At a time when office culture has changed so that people can work from home (as they have been doing at ORC for the last two years) spending $20,000,000 on new offices is absolute lunacy and a disgraceful use of the 73% rates increase they forced on Otago ratepayers.
The curtain needs to fall on this never ending circus! If the Council and their hired hands (the Chief Executive) cannot work together and serve Otago's ratepayers they should resign. It is immoral to use ratepayers money to pay for a mediator to deal with the problems that have arisen through poor governance, management and stupidity. If ORC want to gain any credibility the Council need to dismiss the Chief Executive.