Auckland Council Chief Executive Stephen Town has reflected on a year of major projects, unprecedented growth and big savings.
“At the end of 2018 we predicted this would be a year of growth and capital investment, and set ourselves some ambitious savings targets,” says Mr Town.
“I’m really pleased to say that we were not wrong – it has been a big year!”
The council’s Governing Body last week looked back on the Chief Executive’s performance objectives for the last year and set new goals to take Mr Town’s leadership through to the end of 2020, when he will step down from his role.
Major infrastructure projects on track
“Take a look out the window in the city centre and you’d be hard-pressed not to see a crane – or many cranes – in front of you,” says Mr Town.
“Public and private infrastructure construction is at an all-time high, and our major project deliverables are all on track.
“Infrastructure investment is not limited to the city centre skyline. The City Rail Link continues to make its way below ground, up Albert Street, and large-scale stormwater projects are contributing to water quality improvements across the region,” he says.
Up to 30 June 2019, $2 billion of capital was invested by the council. This included over $700 million on transport infrastructure and $550 million on water infrastructure.
Operating savings targets exceeded
“We set ourselves a target of achieving $23 million in savings in operating costs and came in with actual savings of $24.6 million,” says Mr Town.
“This was achieved by taking a close look at our outgoings across the business and looking for ways to do things more efficiently.”
Salaries and wages also came in $6 million below budget and travel costs were $120,000 (or 9 per cent) below budget.
“Maintaining a workforce to serve a region of more than 1.5 million Aucklanders and provide hundreds of services and programmes lies at the heart of our organisational performance.
“Our full-time equivalent staff (FTE) levels came in at 6,548 (the revised approved target was 6,568) and we continue to work on making sure we have people in the right places to respond to growth and demand for our services.”
The only area of sensitive expenditure that was not met was professional services, where actual spend was $53 million versus a target of $51 million.
Meeting the needs of Aucklanders
“This is one of our most challenging areas. Aucklanders come to us for help, services and support and their experience and the quality of our response has a huge influence on how they feel about us,” says Mr Town.
“This year we’ve consented the highest ever number of new residential dwellings – 14,000 for the year ending June 2019.
“While we didn’t meet all of our customer experience targets, we’ve got a programme of work aimed at improving systems and processes.
“Improvements to timeliness and the request for information process are priority activities for our Regulatory Services (consents) areas for next year.
Looking ahead to 2020
The Governing Body approved new performance objectives that will see Mr Town through to the end of his tenure.
“Customer experience, managing the challenges of investment versus cost savings, growth, attracting and retaining staff and focussing on the ‘local’ in our communities is where we will focus our efforts over the next 12 months,” says Mr Town.
“We will continue to deliver for Auckland with the next stages of our City Centre and Downtown programmes.
“We will be adding 350 roles to the front line, offset by a reduction of 270 in other parts of council, leading to a net increase of only 80,” he says.
Two notable additions to the new objectives are climate change specific actions to reflect elected member focus in this area, and the independent review of Council-controlled Organisations (CCOs).
“Tamaki Makaurau is a world-class city and I am proud of the role Auckland Council plays in helping the region to grow – so that all Aucklanders can be proud of the place they call home.”
Read Auckland Council’s Chief Executive’s performance objectives for 2019-2020 here.