![Sue Bidrose [amps.co.nz] 1](https://dunedinstadium.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/sue-bidrose-amps-co-nz-11.jpg)
The choice of an in-house candidate with some spendthrift tendencies —none other than Sue Bidrose, aka Rosebud.
—
Dunedin City Council – Media Release
New DCC Chief Executive Announced
This item was published on 18 Nov 2013.
Dunedin City Council senior manager Sue Bidrose is the DCC’s new Chief Executive. Bidrose, currently DCC General Manager Services and Development, will take up the position on Saturday, 23 November. Announcing the appointment today, Mayor of Dunedin Dave Cull says the Council made a clear decision in favour of Bidrose, from a strong field of 31 applicants, including overseas applicants.
“[Ms] Bidrose has been performing at a very high level for the three years she has been with the DCC. She continues the tradition of a Chief Executive with a highly developed sense of the responsibilities of public service. I am very confident she is not only extremely competent, but is of the utmost integrity.”
As a member of the DCC’s senior executive team Bidrose helped drive far-reaching changes in the past three years to limit debt and reduce staff and spending, while not reducing levels of service to the community. “It was important for us that the changes put in place by the current Chief Executive were seamlessly progressed and Sue is in the ideal position to do that,” Cull says. Bidrose, who is the DCC’s first female chief executive, says she is delighted to have been selected for the role.
“I am very much looking forward to the challenges of the Chief Executive’s position. I am committed to this organisation and to continuing to have a successful working relationship with elected representatives, staff and the community.”
Bidrose replaces Paul Orders who leaves on Saturday to take up the post of Chief Executive of Cardiff Council in Wales. Bidrose started with the DCC in November 2010 as General Manager Strategy and Development. She came from the Waitakere City Council where she had spent five years in a range of leadership positions, including Director: Community Wellbeing. Bidrose’s previous experience includes senior policy and managerial roles with the Ministry of Social Development. Trusteeships, directorships and board positions held by Bidrose include her current role as Director of Workwise, an agency which assists people with mental illness into work. Bidrose has a PhD in psychology from the University of Otago.
Bidrose’s base annual salary is $325,000. If Kiwisaver contributions are made, total remuneration would be $334,750.
Contact Mayor of Dunedin on 03 477 4000.
—
Related Posts and Comments:
14.11.13 Jeff Dickie thanks Mr Orders for trying (unabridged)
9.11.13 DCC: Appointing a new chief executive
8.11.13 DCHL, long wait for review (Larsen sighs)
29.10.13 DCC: First meeting, tidy or not
25.10.13 Dunedin: “no-growth city”
24.10.13 DCC in-house catering, pruned like CCC?
14.10.13 DCC: New chief financial officer
7.10.13 DCC councillors, no idea annual cost of owning, operating FB Stadium
29.9.13 Cull’s political party… Lost best chief executive we could find.
24.9.13 DCC chief executive Paul Orders recommended for Cardiff
7.9.13 Stadium: $266 million, more or less?
2.8.13 DCC, Stadium —sorry picture
10.7.13 Stadium: Edgar will honour $1M personal pledge to project
9.7.13 Delta Utility Services Ltd, full investigation needed
25.5.13 Paul Orders: Dunedin or Cardiff ???
7.9.12 Ombudsman assists release of CST file information
24.2.12 ‘The final cost of the stadium is … unknown.’
—
Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
*Image: Auckland Motorcycles & Power Sports – Sue Bidrose (Ms)
What if? Dunedin... 
· · · – – – · · ·
The ability to clean up more in council is LOST. Many I know think the sun shines from her rear orifice. I disagree completely.
Worse, I imagine Paul Orders recommended her. “Even” Lee Vandervis thinks well of her.
Cull and MacTavish will be happy. They can keep spending on greenwash.
Hateful.
Who would have thought that the bottom of the barrel was that far down. Over the last few years Sue Bidrose has been seen to be secretive, manipulative, dangerous with money and a born-again green-crusading planet-saver. She is notorious for low financial estimates as a way of tricking councillors into approving projects. No doubt these skills are exactly what Dave Cull and his GD councillors want to further their agenda. The other councillors, however, will now need to be even more cautious when accepting staff reports, recommendations, facts and figures.
Exactly so, JimmyJones. How soon can we get a Commissioner(s) in to stave off DCC’s final slide into selling off ratepayers’ houses ???
This, as Frank Muir might have said ‘is like going from the sub – lime to the ranunculus’ I’ll get my coat.
Looks like a ‘Palace Coup’ to me. First get the throne then get the treasury, mix in compliant operators and ‘bingo’ it’s ‘easy peasy’ from here on in to implement all of your ‘green policies’. Only possible glitch on the horizon now is the changed mix around the council table. Let’s hope sanity will prevail there.
Calvin, Rosebud had been working on Orders for quite some time.
I hear there was another contender, one of merit, which the councillors overlooked. Hmmm.
Calvin: the first step of this coup was for Dave Cull to stack the CEO selection Committee with mostly his own people. The Committee was: Mayor Dave Cull (GD), Councilors Jinty MacTavish (GD), Chris Staynes (GD), Richard Thomson (GD), Kate Wilson(GD), David Benson-Pope and Andrew Noone.
From the DCC media release: Dr Bidrose helped drive far-reaching changes in the past three years to limit debt and reduce staff and spending
Yet she negotiated a high salary for herself like she matters. She could have taken a significant cut or arranged payment of a good percentage to a charitable cause eg the council’s electricity fund, social housing, or the Dunedin Heritage Fund. Instead she’ll probably buy more motorbikes and shed them like Jim Harland did, in DCC-owned buildings.
### dunedintv.co.nz November 18, 2013 – 7:28pm
Dunedin City Council names new chief executive
The Dunedin City Council has gained a new chief executive, and lost the head of its stadium, all in one day. One announcement followed the other as the top jobs came and went. And both mean new searches are on for replacements.
Video
—
In the clip, Burden is said to earn $220, 000… and Hansen (for the DVML Board) says he is disappointed (with losing Burden).
[but hey, as Mike points out, Hansen finds him again for his CHC stadium enterprise, and more]
Jimmy – Jones, Jeez! I didn’t realise he would stack the deck as seriously as that. The only odd man out (and I use that term advisedly) is ‘Bendin Grope’. He is pretty tactile where his interests are. So, Saturday’s council meet and greet would be no more than a formality. Regular little Napoleon isn’t he?
I’m always suspicious of anyone who insists that their academic title be automatically included when publishing their name. Reads a little like an inferiority complex. Plenty of people out there with doctorates who don’t feel the need to remind everyone of their academic achievements in order to justify their position, especially when the qualification in question is completely irrelevant to the job. Maybe I should start including “50m Backstroke, Gold Star” with my name.
Had just that conversation with a grounded colleague (with a particularly handsome doctorate, who doesn’t flaunt it), last week.
‘Incredible privilege’
The Dunedin City Council’s first female chief executive is pleased to be taking over in tough times.
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/281954/incredible-privilege
The talking up of her integrity by the mayor and her comments about keeping the council on course, including for transparency, is hideous double talk given her actions to date, and certainly bodes ill for the health of this city. I don’t mind saying I’m deeply suspicious. Same feeling I had that presupposed my never voting for Cr MacTavish – now demonstrated to be out of her depth in being able to account for proposed council expenditure on the integrated cycleways network. All things come home to roost eventually.
“The talking up of her integrity by the mayor”…. Elizabeth, do you ever watch infomercials? Now that TVOne and others show the same stuff overnight, when I fall asleep in front of the TV I sometimes wake to the sincere enthusiastic advocacy of all manner of wondrous things.
Linguistic note: listen out for the use of “system” in advertising, even in . It appears to be used to suggest impressive complexity >> greater value. If you were to advertise What If you could call it “an information-sharing and discussion System”.
One thing disturbs me. How come there’s only one Sue Bidrose appointed? What happened to “appoint now and you’ll get, not one multi-function wholly organic Sue Bidrose – but TWO!!!”
Hype, I’m sure the Spooks have devised a way to get the semblance of better value with the new model and chunky necklace. The male orders having been phased out – it’s all by telepathy now.
Well said Elizabeth. Is that what happens when the triple espressos kick-in?
I think so.
Phil; you must have stroked a great deal of backs to earn a gold star. Talking about backs, or more specifically, ‘backbones’, I wonder how robust Sue Bidrose’s is? Will she have the degree of stiffness to withstand the pressures to comply with Napoleon’s demands for spending? Does she have the ‘grunt’ to say no! that is not the way it is? We’ll have to wait and see. Between a 50% change of faces around council table, a new CEO and a new chief Financial Officer we could see a very interesting contest over the next trimester. Time to get out the knitting methinks.
Calvin: This is a partnership between Dave and Sue; they both love spending. Sue has some expensive plans for terraforming the city and Dave wants to take the credit. Dave and Sue believe that if they reach their goal of two-thirds of the population travelling by bicycle, then the planet will be saved, and they will be the saviours. Not all of the councillors are true believers, so there will be resistance.
JimmyJones, resistance is possible, sure. But these councillors doubtless have ideas of their own, and if they annoy both the Mayor and the CEO maybe they’ll have difficulty promoting schemes they believe to be of real benefit to Dunedin… and thus the compromise, you scratch my back, give-in give-in as a “temporary” measure to ensure later success with worthwhile onjectives, results in people turning into compliant lapdogs who’ve been to the vet for THAT operation.
Well, at least Paul Orders was a man of integrity. He shall be missed. I think the City is now at one of those very dangerous places in the middle of the swiftly flowing River of Financial Ruin, and all the stepping stones around are covered in algal slime.
Jimmy-Jones; you really should spellcheck your comments. Terror is how you spell it, not terra. Either way, as Jeremy says it looks ominously like we are on skid row financially. Let’s hope some of the new blood can stick their fingers in the dykes before they burst. Jeremy, who, or how many would you class as ‘algal slime’?
Not so bust that there isn’t a few hundred grand here and there for the Good Old Boys – and the braindead who support their ideologies – to pick at and stuff pockets. There’s plenty of bludgers so why not a few vultures too. I’m not too sure how I feel about Paul leaving behind Sue but I could understand how he just wants to get the hell out of this nightmare and his family back home as quickly as possible.
31 applications received, only 2 worth considering for an interview, and one of those was an in-house application. Why was the quality and quantity of the applicants so low ? Ok, probably the good ones knew enough not to touch the job. But if 29 of the 31 weren’t worth interviewing, then that should have waved a big red flag. Having only 2 applicants to choose between to fill one of the most vital roles in the city is not a robust process. Most businesses would have re-advertised in order to get a sufficient quantity of suitable candidates to be able to carry out a proper competitive comparison. You don’t employ someone simply because they were the best of what was available. Unless you already have decided who you want to employ but need to be seen to be going through the process.
That makes it sound dishonest, maybe that’s all we can expect from DCC these days.
Phil
November 19, 2013 at 9:37 pm
“……Why was the quality and quantity of the applicants so low? Ok, probably the good ones knew enough not to touch the job. But if 29 of the 31 weren’t worth interviewing, then that should have waved a big red flag. …..Unless you already have decided who you want to employ but need to be seen to be going through the process.”
Good analysis Phil. It confirms for me on the one hand that this is indeed a poison chalice. On the other hand, if some of the misgivings already expressed by commentators here are true, then the task for the new councillors will be even more onerous. Either way it does not bode well for the city.
Phil, the die was cast when the council flagged that entries would close so early. Sue Bidrose was already in.
Haaaaaaaaaaa
Did MsBid write this ‘erself ?
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/281954/incredible-privilege#comment-50185
When reading and analysing what is said by and about Sue Bidrose’s suitability for the CEO’s position in the press statement, I am somewhat uncertain just how she will work out. As she says, “I’m professionally equipped to do the role”, indicates a confidence that time alone will prove. Certainly she is qualified if academics is what it is all about. But could she run a corner dairy? In my experience Drs of Psychology seldom can. She says it will “test her mettle”, let’s hope it is not just lead. The real test is not a qualification but rather a characteristic which one is born with or not. That is a stiff spine and the will to do what is right regardless of the odds. You can’t teach that, and so far there has been no evidence of it being a feature of her performance to date. Nor, with the exception of Paul Orders has it been manifest in that building for many a long day. We see the results writ large in the fortunes of our city. One really strong plus would be “her experience in assisting people with mental illnesses”. A fertile field there I suspect.