Just days before Christmas, Waikato District Council CEO, Gavin Ion announced a major restructure of his organisation. The Raglan Website questioned Gavin on the reorganisation. Our questions and his answers (in red) follow:
What is the new GM structure and responsibilities?
- General Manager Service Delivery
The purpose of this role is to lead and integrate the planning, management and delivery of the three waters, roading, solid waste, facilities and associated services.
- General Manager Customer Support
The purpose of the role is to lead and integrate the planning, management and delivery of external customer support and services.
General Manager Strategy & Support
The purpose of the role is to lead, coordinate and provide high quality and responsive business support across the two operational groups, to enable them to effectively deliver their respective services.
Who will the Raglan Office Manager report to in the new structure?
The Raglan Office Manager’s reporting line will not change. They will continue to report to the Customer Delivery Manager, who in turn will report to the General Manager Customer Support
In the current structure the W & F GM has a matrix management responsibility for Raglan and interfacing with RCB.Which role will have that function in the new structure?
That is still to be determined.
Council’s chief executive, Gavin Ion added that he made a management decision to review the executive team as he felt the team needed a stronger focus on service delivery and customer support.
“As the needs and demands of our district change, it’s imperative I continually review how we operate to ensure we are providing an effective service for our ratepayers.
“The outcome of the review is that the number of general managers reporting to me will be reduced to three which better aligns to and reflects the needs of our business. There are some other flow-on effects on support roles,” he said.
Recruitment for two of the three general manager positions will begin in January 2013. Positions will be advertised externally but Mr Ion said he welcomed internal applications as well. All current general managers will remain in their existing roles until the recruitment process is completed.
So if 2 of 3 are being advertised, who is the 1 who stays on without having to reapply for a job?
Another question on a different topic – why do ‘recent comments’ and ‘recent Raglan news’ show the same items?
I’ve been told that the General Manager Strategy & Support role is unchanged, so the incumbent Tony Whittaker will remain in his role.
Annoying about the recent comments thing- it started after a software upgrade. I’ll try and turn it off.
So maybe invite suggestions for a list of successes and blunders to help the CEO in his choice of 2 out of 4 (Ian, Kathie, Nath, Richard)? How much will it cost in redundancy?
Oops, sorry, that should be 5 – missed out Jo (http://waidc.govt.nz/Your-Council/Executive-team.aspx).
Read the rest of what Gavin had to say: “Positions will be advertised externally but Mr Ion said he welcomed internal applications as well. All current general managers will remain in their existing roles until the recruitment process is completed.”
So none of the present managers might get a job and the redundancy costs could be even higher.
Yes that’s right John. WDC could be paying redundancy for 5 GMs if all appointments are external. The Times report did say that one has already resigned- if that is the case, then it would be up to 4 lots of redundancy paid out.
The ‘new’ structure reverts back to the tried and trusted ‘County Engineer/ County Clerk’ approach used at one time by all New Zealand counties. It is the wrong structure for a geographically diverse large District Council. And having a restructure now when WDC will probably be itself restructured out of existence is bad timing and a waste of money.