Council changing executive leadership structure

Christchurch City Council Chief Executive Dawn Baxendale is implementing a change to the organisation’s Executive Team and Business Group Structure.

The new structure released to staff halves the number of General Managers in the Executive Team from six to three and reduces the number of groups. It will save between $600k and $700k a year. The restructure disestablishes 13 positions and creates eight new roles.

“We need an organisational structure that will allow us to respond to the challenges we face as an organisation at this stage of the city’s regeneration,” Mrs Baxendale says.

The Council’s external services will be drawn together in two groups - the Citizens and Community Group is unchanged and the other group is City Infrastructure, Planning and Regulatory Services.

The internal enabling and resourcing services are combined into a single group, Resources Group headed by a General Manager who is also the Chief Financial Officer. Strategic policy and performance functions will report to a new role, Assistant Chief Executive- Strategic Policy and Performance.

Mrs Baxendale says the new structure provides a better balance between general managers responsible for delivering levels of service to the community and those providing internal enabling support services.

“We are creating clear accountability, clarity of leadership, improving the services provided to the community and reducing silos and duplication,” she says.

“We are also creating a Council that will listen to the needs of the community and is able to respond directly to issues as they arise.”

Mrs Baxendale says once this change is implemented, the new Executive Team will focus on how to deliver the Council’s ambitions as set out in our Long Term Plan. “This will mean right sizing in 2021 what is right for this Council,” she says.