City Care Confirmed as Contractor

Dunedin (Friday, 6 December 2013) – City Care has been awarded the tender to maintain Dunedin’s water and wastewater network.

DCC Group Manager Water and Waste Laura McElhone says City Care, a Christchurch City Council-owned company, currently maintains water and drainage networks serving 1.5 million New Zealanders.

“We are confident City Care will deliver a step change improvement in service levels, while delivering considerable savings to ratepayers and improving our understanding of our assets so we can plan better for the future.”

The contract, which starts on 28 February 2014, is expected to deliver annual savings of at least $350,000. The annual contract value is $4.6 million a year, with an additional $159,000 of transition costs in the first year.

City Care employees will carry out the maintenance work on the water and wastewater network, such as turning up to fix a burst water main or a blocked sewer.

City Care’s General Manager National Maintenance Tim Gibson says the company is looking forward to working with the DCC and to establishing a presence in the region.

“City Care is a leading New Zealand provider of construction, maintenance and management services with a national footprint and a large workforce. We’ve recently extended our service offerings to include building construction, complementing our full suite of infrastructure

The decision to outsource water and wastewater network maintenance affects 30 DCC staff.

All staff that transfer to City Care will be transferred on their existing terms and conditions of employment under a collective agreement.

Dr McElhone says it is not known at this stage if there will be redundancies and the DCC is continuing to work constructively with the unions. She emphasised the jobs which would be transferred would remain in Dunedin. City Care will be setting up a depot in the city.

The DCC’s Executive Leadership Team (ELT) awarded the tender to City Care last week.

Dr McElhone says the contract has an eight-year term, provided that contract performance measures are met, because that provided better value.

As well as cost savings, the contract will deliver other considerable benefits. These include more assessment of sewer pipe condition through the dedicated use of specialist equipment, which will enable better renewal planning. It will also allow more wastewater and stormwater sewers to be cleaned regularly, which will reduce the risk of flooding, as well as reducing the amount of sediment reaching the Otago Harbour.

City Care also has more advanced IT systems than the Water and Waste Services business unit, such as hand-held computers in the field, which will lead to better customer service.

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