Engineering restructuring underway

The restructuring of the Queenstown Lakes District Council engineering department, as outlined in the 10-Year-Plan, is now underway, QLDC chief executive Duncan Field said.

In January the Council announced its intention to bring Council engineering employees and the staff of Council Controlled Organisation Lakes Engineering Limited, ‘in house’, into one entity.

“We are now moving towards creating a group of people who will work as one team under one structure,” Mr Field said.

The move would decrease the Council’s need to use external consultants and more effectively manage those consultants retained, which in turn would result in a large cost saving for the community.

The Council estimated a 26% ($3.3 million) reduction in the cost of engineering management and a 4.5% reduction in the cost of the capital programme once the proposals were fully implemented.

“Ultimately it will also mean a better outcome for community infrastructure,” Mr Field said.

In order to restructure, all positions underwent an evaluation process. “The new combined structure carries 24.5 full time equivalents, at the moment we have in total 18 employees,” he said.

In some cases the new positions in the new structure aligned with the current role already being undertaken by the individual and those people were able to be offered the new position, although they were being encouraged to apply for other roles that they had an interest in.

Other positions were changed to the extent that the revised roles needed to be advertised. An additional 6.5 roles were new positions. In total six staff were being required to re-apply for amended roles, which would be advertised.

“I need to stress that this was not in any way based on current performance. It is in my opinion the only way to go about the process and ensure that we have the best people in each role,” Mr Field said.

From this weekend the Council would be advertising widely for the 13 positions, in jobs ranging from the General Manager of Infrastructure Services through to project managers, Mr Field said. By advertising the positions at the same time the Council hoped to achieve a short recruitment period. “We want to establish this new team as quickly as possible,” Mr Field said.