7500 council staff to start hearing of their fate

About 7500 council staff will start receiving letters today about their employment status in the Auckland Super City.

The agency designing the Super City has prepared three letters for staff at the existing eight councils and council-owned business such as Metrowater, Manukau Water and the Auckland Regional Transport Authority.

A total of 3486 frontline staff will receive a letter saying there will be no changes or only minor changes to their jobs from November 1 when the Super City comes into being.

Most of these people work in parks, libraries, swimming pools and other frontline centres where it is hoped there will be no interruption to customer and community services.

A second letter will go out to 3830 staff saying the nature and location of their jobs is still under review.

Once the Auckland Transition Agency has completed the design for each of the affected work areas and an overall location plan more information will be provided to this group.

A third letter will go out to 198 senior managers, whose jobs will be incorporated into the top three tiers of the structure for the Auckland Council and council-controlled organisations for water and transport.

These jobs are contestable and have been widely advertised.

When applications closed last month, there were 110 applications for the chief planning, finance and operating roles under the chief executive at the Auckland Council, and 390 applications for 25 "tier-3" roles.

The mega-transport agency has attracted 42 applications for the chief executive job, 91 for three tier-2 jobs and 398 for 20 tier-3 jobs.

It is unclear how many other staff will lose their jobs.

Kerry Davies, the acting assistant secretary of the PSA, said it was an anxious time for staff, about 3000 of whom were members of the union.

The PSA had been consulted and was comfortable with the difficult change process.

Kerry Davies and a spokesman for the agency said the 3830 staff who received a letter telling them their jobs were still under review should not think they were going to lose their jobs.

The agency is still working on the locations for the various arms of the Auckland Council and council-controlled bodies, but has decided the council head office and mayoral office will be in central Auckland.

One suggestion is for Auckland Transport to be based at Waitakere City Council's new head office in Henderson.

There will be four main service centres, at Auckland CBD, Takapuna, Henderson and Manukau.

There will also be four local service centres - at Orewa, Waiheke Island, Papakura and Pukekohe - and five neighbourhood service centres, at Warkworth, Huapai, Helensville, Great Barrier Island and Waiuku, where fewer current services will generally continue.


In the mail:

Council staff will receive one of three letters saying:

* Little or no change - job is safe.

* Nature and location of job still to be determined - job uncertain.

* Senior managers - widespread job losses.