Two Canterbury Councils To Boost Staff Numbers, As Timaru Plans Cuts

Monday, 31 March 2025, 7:40 pm
Article: Jonathan Leask - Local Democracy Reporter

Two Canterbury councils are recruiting for more employees at the same time Timaru's council is proposing to dramatically slash staff numbers.

Timaru District Council announced a major restructure last week, which proposes to cut 71 roles from the senior leadership team to frontline customer services staff.

Nineteen new positions would be created under the proposal, for a net reduction of 52 positions.

Timaru District Council chief executive Nigel Trainor said it would help the council move back into long-term financial sustainability.

At the same time, Selwyn and Ashburton councils have said they are looking to hire more staff.

Selwyn District Council is actively recruiting for 33 positions, or 30 fulltime equivalent positions (FTE).

People culture and capability executive director Steve Gibling said the council currently has 535 FTE positions, including 57 current vacancies.

“Due to the increasing demand for council services with our growing district, our current FTE and associated salary/wages are expected to increase,” he said.

“Staff levels are continuously reassessed in a changing environment to ensure we have the right people with the right capability to deliver our long-term plan.”

The personnel costs, from its most recent 2023/24 annual report, were $42.38 million.

Meanwhile, Ashburton District Council has 234 FTE and a salary and wage bill of $20.6m this year.

Council chief executive Hamish Riach said they planned to increase by two full time equivalent roles and increase the wage bill by $1m under the draft 2025/26 annual plan.

“That essentially includes a budget provision for an annual average wage increase of 3.2%."

A handful of new roles that were originally planned to be performed by consultants have been brought in-house, he said.

“The roles coming in-house do not have an extra cost to council as commensurate savings have been made in other budgets (eg consultants) to reflect those changes.”

Ashburton keeps a close eye on employment levels while also looking at their planned work, he said.

“Our main focus is on getting the work done as effectively as we can within budgets rather than solely focusing on how many staff we employ.”

Timaru has a staff of 317 full-time equivalent staff, as well as some vacant positions which may not be filled under the proposal.

Timaru District Council's chief executive said the total savings of the proposed cuts is between $3.5-$4 million a year.

“The immediate aim is to help close the operating deficit of the council, which will have an effect on rates in the long term,” Trainor said.

Working on the annual plan, he said it became clear “we have a significant operating deficit that we have to bring down”.

“We can tackle this through increasing our income through rates and charges, or cutting how much we spend.

“We need to be mindful that we remain affordable to the community, and while we’ve made operational savings, unfortunately, the only other option we have available is to reduce our salary costs.”

The initial proposal has a consultation period of two and a half weeks but will likely be extended in discussions with staff and the union, Trainor said.

- LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.

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