Tauranga City Council is to undergo a massive restructure involving internal job swaps that will see 52 jobs disappear, and the creation of 54 new ones.

Tauranga City Council offices. Photo: file.

The 52 staff directly affected are first choice for the new positions, says CEO Garry Poole.

About 400 council employees were informed of restructure in a series of meetings late last week.

''By Monday [today] everybody should have a more detailed understanding of what is happening,'' Garry told SunLive.

''We think this is about getting better value for the ratepayer. We think it's about making the organisation being more capable of delivering value to the community.''

A decision was made to maintain the existing bureaucracy following the arrival of the new executive in 2013, to provide a period of stability, says Garry.

''However, our current structure is not consistent with our operating principles.''


The change is driven by the following principle of ‘what gets resourced, gets done'. An example is council's decision to proceed with the new Marine Precinct, allocating $10.38 million to the project in the next two years.

Staff will be allocated and tasked with ensuring it gets done, says Garry.

Other principles driving the change include; being demanding of themselves and others; creating a headspace for thinking and research; and focusing on ‘excellence in execution'.


A key message delivered by US management guru Gary Hamel in Auckland recently is that if an organisation has to undergo a major restructure, it means it hasn't been adapting to change in its environment, says Garry.

Future changes in Tauranga City Council's structure will be evolutionary not revolutionary.


''We will constantly adapt so repositioning and restructures are things of the past,'' says Garry.

The structure is a six-tier model comprising infrastructure services, environmental services, organisational services, community services, strategy and finance. The rest is re-shuffling.

Procurement is being moved to finance, as is the property portfolio. Finance is a new group moved from organisational services. Open space and recreation and facilities - parks - are now to be part of environmental services. Parking and cemeteries will also be part of environmental services.

An event's manager position is to be created, reflecting the expanded events funding in the Annual Plan. It will be part of organisational services. Two new transformation managers, tasked with supporting the city transformation, will also be part of this group.


The event's team currently in communications will also move to organisational services. The communications team will move to the strategy group from chief executive.

Community services takes on community facing roles including cultural heritage, city partnerships, sustainability and libraries.