Waipā staff painted a brutal picture this week of the pressure they are under to produce an Annual Plan by June 30.
At the council’s Audit and Risk committee on Monday, staff revealed eight new risks following the decision to delay the 10-year Long Term Plan and produce an Enhanced Annual Plan in less than four months.
Councillors leaking confidential information was one of the risks.
Photo: Lukas: pexels.com
Leaks would not only result in a lack of trust between staff and elected members, a report to the committee detailed, the information could also be wrong and prevent council being able to control the narrative.
Strategy manager Melissa Russo said the four ‘very high’ risks were not achieving timeframes, manual preparation of the budget, general illness/stress, and an aggressive community response.
The two high ones are concerns a new consultation system would make it difficult to collect and analyse stakeholder information and the second was around community expectations on what the council could deliver.
The two medium ones are the risk of there being a legal challenge to council’s decision to defer the Long Term Plan and the leaking of confidential information by elected members.
The report reveals staff have put procedures in place if the community turns nasty. That includes putting council offices in lockdown – something they have had to do in the past and which resulted in the installation of security grills over the counters.
Garry Dyet
“This risk has been rated ‘very high’ due to the health and safety risk to elected members and staff and the reputational risk to council of misinformation circulating in the community,” said Russo.
Also very high are seasonal illnesses which have increased among staff and these, coupled with stress, could lead to slippage in deliverables and timeframes.
Evidence of how critical the risks are were obvious in the matters discussed in public excluded which included a “deep dive” into the top risks and a discussion with chief executive Garry Dyet over organisational risk.
