Empty seats beat empty heads

David Bennett is the executive director of Pacific Helmets, Wanganui. Photo/File

With byelection voting papers not faraway and feeling frustrated by my dealings with Wanganui District Council staff in recent months, I hope that whoever stands to fill the district council vacancy demonstrates an understanding of what it means to be a member of what is effectively a board of directors.

It's also important that they can demonstrate recent and effective experience at a high level in a corporate or large organisation at a governance level.

Looking in from the outside, my impression of the council is that it is too involved in managing the operations of the city.

I'm not privy to the internal reporting functions from the chief executive to the "board", but there needs to be a distinct difference in the two roles - chief executive responsible for daily management and carrying out board policy, and the board (councillors) setting the directions and demanding the chief executive gets results from his/her team.

Of course, the chief executive must have a close working relationship with the board chair (in this case the mayor), but her role is not to get involved in minutiae or chair every sub-committee or be involved in the day-to-day operations.

A couple of weeks ago, I made a submission to the annual plan. I was amazed to see all the board (read councillors) there.

Could not a number of small sub-committees have heard the various submissions, and split the workload between them?

That way the whole job would have been completed in a couple of hours, instead of the two full days I understood it took to hear all the submissions.

This personal experience supported the rumour that I have heard that board members are having to spend up to 30 hours per week on council meetings.

This is crazy and should be a turn-off for wannabe new candidates.

Effective time management would leave board members free to deal with community concerns and spend time thinking about advancing the city.

For those who have other employment or responsibilities, it would mean that they would not to be so tied down by council trivia that is management's responsibility.

This may explain why quality executive people from the city (especially accountants, engineers and marketing people) are reluctant to stand for council positions.

Being a councillor is a poorly paid job and not worthy of more than a few hours each week.

Here is my list of attributes that any new councillor must have:

1. Verifiable recent experience on a significant corporate board of directors, public corporation or large charity organisation.

2. Verifiable professional qualifications or senior management skills in areas that will add to the talents of the council.

3. Able to demonstrate they can participate in creative ways to council debates.

4. No one-issue bandwagons.

5. Be able to present a vision for Wanganui.

6. Obvious stature - not just physical height (although that helps) but able to project a personal characteristic that provides leadership.

7. Leadership skills. It seems obvious, but the ambition to be a district councillor does not necessarily mean that you are capable of leading a council. I always believe that when nominating an MP, if the nominee appears unlikely to be capable of Cabinet responsibility or even a potential prime ministership, he or she is not up to spec. The same applies to district councillors - better a vacant seat than an empty head.

8. Other attributes - policy development and planning; delivery and diagnosing how the delivery is going; monitoring and reviewing performance of executive management.

With all this in mind, I have specific questions for the current councillors:

1. Which councillors have participated in the Institute of Directors or the local authorities senior governance training courses?

2.What are the KPIs council has set the chief executive? Are they being achieved and, if not, why not?

3. Has the chief executive set KPIs for the divisions of the WDC? If so, what are they?

4. Does the chief executive report in writing to council each month?

5. At what date did the wastewater manager report in writing to the chief executive about the failure of the sewage plant?

6. At what date did the chief executive report this formally to the mayor and councillors?

7. Is council looking at alternatives to rebuilding the sewage plant?

8. What's wrong with changing the pipework so that the protein and animal waste from the Heads Rd "wet industries" goes out to sea to feed the fish?

The impression one has of the council is of an organisation in waiting - waiting for leadership with real vision and the ability to pull it off.

This is a district council that needs to lift its game.

We are a provincial city, seemingly without any plans for growth and no plans to raise the wealth of our citizens.

The challenge for any new councillor is to be an agent for change.

Are they up to it?