Few water job losses, DCC says

Laura McElhone
Laura McElhone
A small number of redundancies are expected as the Dunedin City Council moves to outsource some of its water maintenance work to Christchurch City Council-owned City Care.

However, council staff said most of the up to 30 workers affected by the outsourcing plan were expected to secure new jobs within City Care. Others were expected to remain with the council to keep key reservoir, pressure valve and other maintenance skills in-house.

The details were confirmed by DCC water and waste group manager Laura McElhone yesterday as she formally announced City Care as the council's preferred water and wastewater network maintenance contractor. She said the decision to go with City Care was made at an executive management team meeting on Tuesday, and affected staff were briefed at 8am yesterday.

The council would now begin price negotiations with City Care representatives, and a final decision was expected late next month, she said.

If confirmed, most of the 30 affected workers would be transferred to City Care under existing terms and conditions, ready for a March start. The company had offered no ''cast iron guarantee'' for their continued employment, but it was expected the workers would be needed in Dunedin as long as the company held the contract, she said.

That would be for at least four years, although the company had an automatic right of renewal - extending the deal to eight years - if targets were met, she said.

A small number of workers would be retained by the council, and a ''very small'' number made redundant, as a result of the outsourcing proposal, she said.

The exact numbers were yet to be confirmed, she said.

''There is a very small number of potential redundancies, but we just need to work through,'' she said.

Fears the outsourcing would lead to further redundancies, if City Care promptly launched its own restructuring after taking over the contract, were ''unfounded'', she said.

Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull defended the selection of a Christchurch-based company yesterday, saying there were ''no local companies that could do it''.

City Care's selection came after the council earlier named it and three other companies - Fulton Hogan, Downer and French-owned Veolia - as contenders for the contract.

Veolia subsequently pulled out, and Fulton Hogan was ruled out, leaving City Care and Downer vying for the work.

City Care was preferred because of its ''capability to deliver'', which was assessed based on ''all manner of different things'', including its safety and employment record, quality management systems, customer service and ability to get to jobs on time, she said.

Outsourcing was also expected to deliver savings for ratepayers, reducing council costs by between $350,000 and $500,000 a year, allowing another $900,000 to be recouped from equipment sales and avoiding $590,000 in future investment costs.

- chris.morris@odt.co.nz

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