### ODT Online Thu, 21 Mar 2013
Shake-up at top for DCC
By Debbie Porteous
Senior jobs could be under threat at the Dunedin City Council as chief executive Paul Orders uses the sudden departure of a general manager to begin a wholesale review of the organisation’s senior management structure.
“As circumstances change, so we should restructure,” Mr Orders told the Otago Daily Times yesterday.
An interim management structure has been put in place to reallocate the work of former general manager of finance and resources Athol Stephens, who quit abruptly last Thursday. Mr Orders says his attention will now turn to the wider organisation. Under the new arrangements, which are effective immediately, Mr Stephens’ portfolios have been allocated to other staff.
General manager city strategy and development Dr Sue Bidrose takes responsibility for finance and general manager operations, Tony Avery takes responsibility for the customer services agency, while the city property, business information services and human resources teams will report directly to Mr Orders.
Read more
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
What if? Dunedin... 
Man we seem to employ one hell of a lot of ‘management’. I use the term loosely…..
Last we heard there were 45 managers at DCC. However, Mr Orders has been whittling things down – wonder what the number is now ? It’s worth knowing.
I’ll run with far too many.
Better than mega-gollumptiously-far too many though, wirehunt.
Congratulations on Paul Orders getting on with moving out the previous empire builder’s ideologies and visions.
But this decision is really bloody odd:
General manager city strategy and development Dr Sue Bidrose takes responsibility for finance…
I thought her doctorate was in psychology?
But this one makes a lot more sense:
The marketing and communications team will report to governance manager Sandy Graham…
That’s a department needing to be brought into line.
Probably best the Psychologist wasn’t heading the Spook team – god only knows what sort of trouble would come from that with the type of egos running it presently.
I think that means the staff are running corporate finance and Rosebud is going for the G-Managerial ride as a ‘stamp’. Or she’s off to do a quick B.Com in her spare time, instead of drinking coffee on the DCC credit card at Nova.
With Athol gone who will be Secretary to DCTL (City Treasury)?
The IT department is in desperate need of new leadership too.
I’m not sure if “business information services” is the same thing but there might be a lightening up of that dark cloud if Paul took direct control of it as well.
Phil’s observations about the money-go-round within DCC departments including IT are something the CEO should be investigating.
(Note it is not the IT staff who set this policy – they just have to work under it. It’s about time they were given a fair deal because what’s left of them still work bloody hard to keep its systems operational. Too many rung-climbers and drive-by managers dismiss this.)
Phil – May 12, 2011
https://dunedinstadium.wordpress.com/2011/05/11/dunedin-city-council-building-control-fees/#comment-16948
Phil – February 6, 2012
https://dunedinstadium.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/dcc-money-go-round-embedded/
Meanwhile at Wellington…
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### stuff.co.nz Last updated 05:00 05/04/2013
Councillors asleep at the wheel as jobs axed
By Katie Chapman
More than 150 council jobs have been axed in Wellington while half the elected councillors remained oblivious – and they have woken up too late to save a further 27.
Anger over outsourcing boiled over at a special meeting yesterday as Wellington city councillors realised staff numbers at publicly owned infrastructure unit CitiOperations had been cut from about 200 to fewer than 40.
“How did that happen? Why were our hands not on the steering wheel?” Mayor Celia Wade-Brown asked.
Councillors then bickered over whether they knew what was happening, with half claiming they thought the unit had been safeguarded while others said they had all been briefed about each outsourcing move.
The chaos played out in front of newly arrived chief executive Kevin Lavery, making his first appearance at a council meeting, who was forced to acknowledge “trust and confidence issues” between staff and councillors, hours after his welcoming powhiri.
Councillors then commissioned a review of how the jobs were lost without them knowing, and voted unanimously to halt any future outsourcing.
Read more
(link via Martin Legge)