‘Help!’ – Mayor Wayne Brown’s ‘moaning’ first email to Auckland Council CEO covering beer, balance sheets and 400 jobs & More Trending News

A self-described “moan” of an email despatched by mayor Wayne Brown has berated Auckland Council chief govt Jim Stabback over a listing of procedural inadequacies – together with monetary stories “with no numbers”, an incapacity to
inventory a beer fridge, and promoting 400 jobs when managerial cuts “are more than on the cards”.

The email from Brown to Stabback on October 19 final 12 months was despatched barely every week after he was elected mayor of Auckland and was obtained by the Herald beneath the Local Government Official Information Act.

The topic title of the email is “Progress” and CC’d into the correspondence is Brown’s former chief of workers, Tim Hurdle.

The tone of the email is established from Brown’s first line which opens: “Hi Jim, Things happen very slowly at Council”.

It is most probably the first official email between the brand new mayor and the council chief govt, because the Herald requested all correspondence between the pair from the first day of Brown’s October 8 election.

From the outset, Brown undoubtedly lives up to his marketing campaign vow to not spare staff’ emotions in shaking up procedural issues and his notion of bureaucratic waste.

First up on Brown’s record of complaints is an alleged lack of element and numbers within the council monetary stories he’s acquired in his first 11 days within the high job.

“Simple things like getting paper copies of recent council activities just don’t happen. So far I have received copies of only two meeting papers,” Brown writes.

The new mayor references “an excruciating 110-page paper on BIDs that discussed things that are not even council’s business”.

The letter is strewn with quick exasperated sentences ended with exclamation factors.

“No numbers at all in the whole meeting papers!” Brown writes, in addition to: “Help! The financial briefing we got was very underwhelming. No P&L, no balance sheets.”

Brown, 76, was the previous Far North mayor, has chaired three hospital boards and held varied public sector roles together with overseeing Transpower, Land Transport Safety Authority and TVNZ. The first email to Stabback makes clear he’s very unimpressed with the usual of economic transparency or foresight in his first Auckland Council stories.

“These should be on the first page of every finance meeting showing both group and council and movements and relationship to budget. As pointed out at the meeting there was no forward-looking mention of big nasty things coming like CRL and Port automation losses. No response to requests to follow up on these.”

Council performing chief govt chief monetary officer Peter Gudsell instructed the Herald when introduced with Brown’s complaints that the council continues to meet its obligations round monetary reporting together with audits.

In response to Brown’s grievance a few lack of numbers, Gudsell mentioned: “The scale of the council group means that balance sheet movements from month to month are often immaterial, therefore substantial financial reporting has been provided to the finance and CCO oversight committees on a quarterly basis.”

But Gudsell indicated that in November, in session with Brown, month-to-month group monetary updates and a report from the group chief monetary officer to the governing physique of Auckland councillors was launched.

Another level of intrigue within the letter is Brown’s reference to a catered operate, which Gudsell clarified to the Herald was a morning tea to welcome the brand new mayor and councillors on October 14.

“The council briefing day papers have not been made available to know what they were told and the feast catered for has been reported as better than many weddings,” the mayor says.

Brown seems to distinction the extravagance of this morning tea with what seems to be an incapacity to get a private beer provide.

“The simple process of getting and stocking a beer fridge has defeated the system,” Brown writes.

Brown additionally not directly raises a really key marketing campaign pledge of his to slash the salaries of the managerial ranks of Auckland Council workers by up to 30 per cent.

“Are we still advertising 400 jobs, at a time when job cuts, especially on mid and upper-level managers are more than on the cards?”

Gudsell confirmed “it is correct to assume that around 400 roles may be advertised at any one time across the council group”.

But the performing chief govt mentioned a 15 per cent “churn” of a 7000 workforce is pretty normal and further hiring restrictions throughout the council had been put in place in October.

The habits and restraint of the 20 Auckland councillors and how they run their very own places of work additionally is available in for a swipe by Brown.

“I still don’t have a copy of the organisation chart so I can’t understand all of the council bits and who is in charge of what,” Brown writes.

“No doubt this lack of clarity is why councillors keep asking for more staff when there are probably twice as many as needed. Councillors need to be more self-sufficient and should set an example of frugality.”

Gudsell clarified to the Herald that Brown had requested an organisation chart for the entire of the council, but it surely was “noted” to the brand new mayor that to “provide a printed organisation chart for an organisation of our size wasn’t practical”.

The mayor has been supplied with a chart outlining the highest 4 govt tiers.

In response to accusations of councillors missing of frugality, Gudsell identified “how the staffing and support functions of the organisation work … was provided during the Kura Kawana [induction] briefings”.

One Auckland councillor who noticed the email described Brown’s sentiments as “scattergun stuff and nonsense”.

“The mayor seems to have a warped sense of frugality if getting a fully stocked beer fridge in his office – on the ratepayer tab – is his main priority,” mentioned the councillor, who didn’t need to be named.

“I guess it just confirms his double standards. From the way the email is written it’s pretty the mayor [clear] needs to break the no-hire rule, get some decent strategic thinkers in his office and dispense with the bunch of election campaign mates gathered around the beer fridge.”

The parting sentiment of Brown’s first email to the Auckland Council chief govt is one in all impatience and frustration.

“There has been progress on some issues that my team are pushing but I haven’t yet met your [Stabback’s] senior team, so can we move things along. The first council meeting is getting close and it needs to set standards for the next three years,” Brown writes.

“I’ll try not to moan but it is frustrating.”

As a normal response to Brown’s exasperated first email, Gudsell instructed the Herald this week that it was despatched “soon after the election and during a time of induction” for the mayor.

“It is expected that new elected members will have many questions about the running of our large and complex organisation, and we were prepared to respond to the priorities our new elected members set out,” Gudsell mentioned.

Brown didn’t reply to the Herald’s request for remark.

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