Chief executive Alex Parmley has admitted the council’s ability to meet its statutory governance function and provide council meeting agendas in a timely fashion has been stretched.
In a recent update to Waitaki district councillors, Mr Parmley said the council had reached the mid-point under the transformation programme.
"We are in the middle of recruitment in transformation. There will be staff movement happening as people are appointed.
"That will be gradual over the coming months", he said.
This followed a question from Cr Jeremy Holding about the implications of the transformation on resources for the next long term plan.
Mr Parmley said there were four phases in the process which would include an adjustment period where new departments were "stood up" and employees settled into their new roles.
"Inevitably that will have some impact in terms of business as usual in service delivery.
"It is a risk we’ve identified through transformation.
"There will be short-term disruption, potentially, as staff move to different roles and different ways of working, which will inevitably have some impact on staff getting used to changes."
Mr Parmley has made a number of explanations at the council table since July where the transformation process was given as the reason why minutes and agenda papers were not available in a timely way.
The Otago Daily Times has asked council staff twice in that period to provide meeting agendas which were not available within the required 48 hours before a meeting.
Most recently the Ahuriri Community Board agenda was not released on the day of the meeting until a media request was made.
Mr Parmley told the ODT the council endeavoured to upload meeting agendas on time.
But it was "under resourced" for that statutory function.
He said it generally issued the required meeting papers "well ahead of time".
"On occasions this is not always possible for a variety of reasons including awaiting information from other parties or due to additional meetings being called that add to workloads", he said.
"We are currently under resourced in the governance area and awaiting the recruitment to a role, tied to the transformation programme recruitment."
However, in light of the transformation the council was "looking at opportunities" to ensure its core governance function was "more efficient".
This included the production and publication of agendas.
Under the transformation, a 9% reduction in fulltime equivalent roles from 211 to 191 is planned alongside the reduction from five to four council groups.
The majority of staff have had to reapply for their jobs for new or redefined roles.
The council received eight formal resignations in the first month from July 18.
The council was unable to pinpoint on Friday the number of resignations since.
However, no positions had been "made redundant" at this point.
Mr Parmley said they expected to complete the employment aspect of the council’s transformation by September 30.
"Some appointments to these roles will lead to further opportunities being available for existing staff to apply for."
