New structure revealed to regional council staff

Chief executive Malcolm Nicolson

Northland Regional Council staff have finally been told what the restructure that has hung over their heads since March will look like.

Yesterday, chief executive Malcolm Nicolson gave staff his final report on the changes he flagged more than six months ago, designed "to make the organisation fit-for-purpose". Back then, Mr Nicolson said the process, that would see up to 11 jobs go and another 18 created, would be completed by June 22.

Several months after that deadline, the major reshuffle has seen only two people made redundant, neither of them compulsory redundancies, according to Mr Nicolson, with no more job losses proposed. Some staff have left outside a redundancy process.

Altogether, 28 new roles have been created, although the majority of those are the result of redesigned, redeployed or renamed existing roles. Fourteen roles were disestablished and rejigged, and three retained.

There are eight vacancies to be filled, four of which have no funding allocated for them at this stage. Two jobs will be externally funded, Mr Nicolson said.

The organisation will be arranged around four operational groupings and one support group. While no level of the staffing structure was left untouched, and the aim was to deliver better community outcomes, most of the major shifts up or down as well as horizontally have taken place at management level, in what Mr Nicolson called "cross organisational integration".

Mr Nicolson said this would improve levels of engagement with the public and align the organisation more closely with the Long Term Plan's key performance indicators, set by the elected council.

"The most significant change is the replacement of the organisational development group with a broader based and more inclusive cross organisational support unit, which will report directly to me," he said.

When asked a month ago what the annual staff salary would be compared to before the restructure, Mr Nicolson said, "this can only be accurately answered once the positions have all been filled".

To June 3, $74,800 had been spend on human resource consultancy and legal advice for the restructure, he said. That figure and costs yet to be incurred were not included in the Long Term Plan adopted this year.