The workload faced by the Waitaki District Council in the next year has prompted councillors to make changes to its committee and governance structure to cope.
After the October local body elections, the council set in place a governance structure, but decided to review it after six months.
It subsequently made minor changes to the structure, but added in three working parties in an attempt to handle the work it faces, including preparing its 10-year long-term community plan, which must be completed by the end of June 2012.
Strategy group manager Richard Mabon said the present system was "working quite well", but a time factor was creeping in with preparation of the long-term plan and developing policy for a strategic plan.
Staff had estimated that from the end of May, the council had 132 hours of workshops available before the end of the year.
Since May, it had already used 28 hours of those.
Workshops are used to informally discuss issues and solutions before formal proposals are put to the council's committee of the whole or council itself.
Staff put two proposals to the council, the formation of three working parties - assets, property and development and finance and audit - and setting an extra day for council workshops if time on Tuesdays was fully committed with council or committee meetings.
However, when it came to appointing councillors to the working parties, the council hit a snag with Crs Gus Young and Helen Stead questioning why they had been named on some and not others. Waitaki Mayor Alex Familton pointed out any councillor could attend a working party meeting, with the same rights as those appointed. The working parties would not be making decisions, recommendations nor voting.
In the end, the working parties were.- Assets: Cr Kathy Dennison (chairwoman), Crs Geoff Keeling, Kevin Malcolm and Hugh Perkins. Finance: Crs Malcolm (chairman), Peter Garvan, Young and Stead. Property and development: Crs Garvan (chairman), Sally Hope, Stead and Craig Dawson.
The Mayor and deputy mayor will be ex-officio members of the working parties.
The council did not set an extra day for council workshops, instead deciding at this stage to sit later on Tuesdays.
