KEY POINTS:
About a quarter of the 50 or so spin doctors at Auckland City Council could lose their jobs as part of a $1 million cost-saving exercise.
A disgruntled staff member has leaked the figures to the Herald, but they was disputed yesterday by communications and marketing group manager Mark Fenwick.
He confirmed that consultancy firm Ascari Partners had been hired to review the group, but said there was no "explicit goal to reduce staff numbers". The review has been prompted by the new John Banks-led council, which is undertaking a "line-by-line" review of council spending to reduce wastage.
It also follows the communications botch-up over the introduction of the controversial new council logo.
Part of the review is a new marketing strategy, which the staff member said had cost ratepayers more than $130,000 in consultancy fees and research, excluding Ascari's costs.
The 50 or so staff in the group were told about the cutbacks 10 days ago and will be briefed today on the marketing strategy.
It was written by marketing strategy manager Dale Clements on November 14 for the executive team.
The strategy recommends moving away from building relationships and dealing with media outlets, like the Herald, in favour of council-controlled channels such as its "credible" City Scene weekly publication, website and direct marketing.
"The rationale for this strategy is that there is no evidence that investment in PR is working," the strategy document said.
It said channels, such as the Herald and radio, should be used only sparingly. The Herald was "expensive and high maintenance", "irrelevant" and contained a "high level of wasted coverage".
Radio had "significant audience fragmentation", "high frequency but low coverage" and a "high level of wasted coverage".
Mr Fenwick said the council was not going to abandon traditional media outlets.
"It's more a change in emphasis."
The disgruntled staff member said morale was poor among marketing and communications staff.
Information was not being shared with staff and there was resentment towards senior managers over the logo fiasco.
