The arrival of the Dunedin City Council’s newly appointed chief executive, Richard Briggs, in October was highly anticipated by councillors, Cr Cherry Lucas told a public meeting earlier this week.
‘‘We think he’s going to be a breath of fresh air’’, she said.
‘‘Someone who’s new — you’ve heard about the culture change that’s needed in the organisation and we think he’s going to bring that.
‘‘We’re really looking forward to lots of changes and I hope that you will embrace that when he arrives here.’’
Cr Lucas, who is also deputy chairwoman of the council’s chief executive performance and employment committee, made the comments on Tuesday, at a meeting organised by the Dunedin Area Citizens Association.
The first few months of the council term had been ‘‘really unusual and it has been hard work’’, she said.
Significant effort had gone towards the chief executive recruitment process, she said.
Last month, the council announced Mr Briggs’ appointment to the role for a five-year term.
Incumbent chief executive Sandy Graham did not seek an extension to her contract and will leave in October.
The council was unable to comment by deadline and is expected to respond next week.
This had been ‘‘signalled by appointing Mr Briggs’’.
‘‘We all have different expectations of what culture we might like to work in.
‘‘Top of my list is that I want to make sure we continue a culture of respect between councillors towards our staff and council officers who work in our public service,’’ Ms Barker said.
Ms Graham did an excellent job and ‘‘continues to be a high-performing CEO of Dunedin city, who is managing an extremely complex organisation in challenging times’’, Ms Barker said.
The matter of decision-making delegated to the chief executive was also raised at Tuesday’s meeting.
Cr Russell Lund said councillors had not been informed of the $145m, 10-year maintenance contract awarded by the council to Citycare Water in April.
‘‘That is not acceptable to me ... but that is the delegated authority that we gave the CEO.’’
Cr Lucas said councillors were keen to review delegations before Mr Briggs started.
‘‘I’ve been talking to Sophie about that and we’re treading, as you can appreciate, a very fine line with the current CEO of when we get that to take that to council.’’
Ms Barker said she and Cr Lucas had discussed the chief executive’s delegations and performance management process.
They, alongside councillors, had updated the job description before the recruitment process, she said.
There was more to be done in the coming months, such as a new performance agreement, which would include key performance indicators.
