Council claims restructuring of 66 roles will result in one less worker

Tuesday, 9 September 2025

The Wellington City Council says the 66 roles it is proposing to disestablish will result in just one person losing their job.

But The Post has confirmed there is a wider set of work under way to look at staffing levels and other aspects at the council.

The Post on Monday revealed that the council is proposing disestablishing at least 63 roles, some of which are already vacant, with the final decision coming out just two days after the October 11 election.

The biggest scalp in the process is understood to be parks, sports and recreation manager Paul Andrews who in 2024 was awarded the Ian Galloway Memorial Cup for “excellence and outstanding personal contribution to the wider parks sector”. He has been with the council for more than 30 years.

Council spokesperson Richard MacLean said the proposed restructuring of the Customer and Community Group would mean the loss of 31 vacant roles and 35 filled roles. But it would also create 65 new roles – meaning just one net job loss.

“This does not impact levels of service to the community, in fact it seeks to enhance the service experience,” MacLean said.

Restructure proposal documents seen by The Post show that Prosser ordered the Deloitte Future for Pōneke report in August. Among its goals were, “reducing duplication and streamlining processes“, reducing costs and ”focused vacancy management“.

MacLean said the report was not due back for “some time”. He could not say how much it was costing the council but said it was funded through savings from vacant staff roles.

The current roles up for redundancy were not connected to the Deloitte report, MacLean said.

But proposal documents show that the perception of jumping the gun on the Deloitte report was considered by council executives. The Deloitte report was taking longer than expected and council executives did not want to wait for the Deloitte recommendations in October, they say.

“I know some will question the timing of this change in light of the announcement of the review,” they say. It is not clear who the author is.

“It is my view however, and that of Matt and my [executive leadership team] colleagues, that the proposals outlined in this document are aligned to the focus areas that Deloitte will be basing their review on and that we should not wait to commence this change.”

PSA national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons said it was “nonsensical” to order the Deloitte review then “jump the gun with proposed changes before that review is even received”.

It was “just wrong“ for the council to make its final redundancy decision two days after the election, she said.

'The staff who look after city safety, libraries, parks and sports facilities deserve to have their work carefully considered by the democratically elected representatives of the city before they are dismissed. This is bad public policy and will take Wellington backwards.“

Andrews has had a notably high-profile role at the council. Most recently he was the council voice on waterfront fencing when he told a coroner there were “tens of millions” of dollars being invested to make the harbour wharves safer, only to then have the council vote against the spend.

During the early days of Covid-19 he headed the council’s pandemic response team, and was the public face of the council’s failed attempts to halve the size of the Mornington Golf Club.

Andrews has been approached for comment.