Recommendations about the future of economic development agency Whanganui & Partners are being considered by Whanganui District Council today. Photo / Moana Ellis
Changes may be on the way for Whanganui economic development agency Whanganui & Partners.
An extraordinary district council meeting has been called on today.
The Long-Term Plan 2024-2034 will be under consideration, and pruning the budget front of mind.
Among items for review are the council-controlled organisations (CCOs), which include Whanganui & Partners and Whanganui District Council Holdings.
Holdings subsidiaries include the New Zealand International Commercial Pilot Academy and GasNet, and the three Whanganui Port companies are accountable to Holdings.
An external report on the CCOs was commissioned last year at mayor Andrew Tripe’s request, but its results and recommendations have not been made public. Those recommendations are before councillors today.
Most of the meeting excludes the public. Public exclusions include correspondence, additional information, reports to the council and a motion to reopen the meeting to the public.
The meeting agenda states privacy and negotiations as reasons for excluding the public from sections of the meeting that will consider Whanganui & Partners’ recommendations in the CCO review.
It says some of the recommendations will affect the employment of staff at Whanganui & Partners.
The council said reports would be released “once all staff have been notified of the decisions that council has made”.
Whanganui & Partners has already been asked to make savings. One possibility is that it could be brought “in house”, under direct council control.
Eleven staff are employed at the agency’s St Hill St headquarters.
It also operates the Whanganui i-Site visitor information centre on Taupō Quay, which attracts 25,000 visitors each year.
Whanganui & Partners receives $2.79 million in annual funding from the council.
Its mission is to “facilitate growth and opportunity” for the district’s people and businesses, and to make Whanganui a destination of choice for visitors.
The economic development agency was launched in December 2014. Its first boss was Adrian Dixon, who spent two and a half years in the role.
In the past five and a half years it has had five chief executives, including current board chair Gaelle Deighton in an acting role.
The district council is looking for serious cost savings amid a potential 14.8 per cent rates hike on the horizon. These could include asset sales and service reductions and re-structuring of the CCOs.
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air
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