Tuesday 9 June 2015

Changes to Council organisational structure

Christchurch City Council is proposing wide-ranging changes to its organisation structure to make it more accessible for the community and to reduce bureaucracy.

The Council's Chief Executive Dr Karleen Edwards announced the review of the Council's organisational structure to staff yesterday.

"Since I took on this job a year ago, I have spent a lot of time with teams across the organisation, looking at the ways they work and how we interact with our residents.

"I've also been out and about a lot, talking with residents, communities, businesses, customers and stakeholders," Dr Edwards says.

"I do not believe that with our current structure and ways of working we will get to the point that we need to, and where the people of Christchurch need us to be, without some significant changes."

The Council needs to do better for the city and its residents and to do so, it needs the right structure and the right ways of working, Dr Edwards says.

The proposed change will not impact on Council services. The scope of the restructure includes all management and support functions, but does not include frontline staff and Council Controlled Organisations, including Vbase.

"The proposed structure will create a more agile organisation, where the left hand knows what the right hand is doing and can respond quickly and confidently to the dynamic needs of the rebuild.

We are creating a Council that will listen to the needs of the community and is able to respond directly to issues as they arise, she says.

"The changes we make will create clear accountability, clarity of leadership, improve the services provided to the community and empower key staff to make the decisions needed to keep the rebuild moving.

"The Council also needs to be ready to regain leadership of the city when the transition from the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA) is completed."

Dr Edwards says she recognises the Council has undergone recent change, but in her view changes made to date need building on. "Our community and our staff are telling us we can do better and we must respond to this," she says.

"Obviously times of change can be unsettling for staff and I want to acknowledge just how hard our people are working to make a difference for their communities."

A change proposal is being prepared and will be released to staff next month.

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