Top-earning Auckland officials targeted in lobby group's name-and-shame

Monday, 20 April 2020

Gifts from socks to world travel have been declared by Auckland Council staff.

More than 80 senior officials have been told their salaries, names and a photo will be published in a 'Rich List' being compiled by a self-styled public watchdog.

The Taxpayers' Union and its affiliate the Auckland Ratepayers Alliance wrote to Auckland Council executives and those from the council's agencies last week, asking them to confirm or correct salary information gleaned from public sources and information requests.

The groups have focussed on 85 people earning more than $250,000 a year.

Auckland Council chief executive Stephen Town says the Taxpayers' Union is pressuring staff to hand over private information.

'These people are on the same pay as a Government minister and more. The public deserve to know who they are,' Jordan Williams, the executive director of the Taxpayers' Union and spokesman for the alliance, said.

* Coronavirus: Auckland Mayor Phil Goff open to pay cut

* Coronavirus: Auckland Council cuts up to 1100 temporary and contractor staff

* Auckland Council agency Panuku paid $451,000 to staff in bonuses**

However, Stephen Town, the council's chief executive, objected to the move in a letter to Williams on Friday.

It was 'pressuring' officials to 'release their personal information', he said.

Auckland Council has declined to release the salaries of named staff.

'We ask you to refrain from doing so and to make any further requests for information through the official and proper channels.'

The council and five agencies have released only job titles and the relevant salary band, with a range of $50,000, to the Taxpayers' Union.

They said to do more would breach privacy and past rulings by the Ombudsman supported that practice.

Jordan Williams, the executive director of the Taxpayers' Union.

'They might consider it their private information, but they don't seem to understand that it's our money,' Williams said in a media statement.

All of the bodies publish their staff numbers each year, with their salaries broken down into $20,000 increments.

The Taxpayers' Union wants to put names to those staff and publish a photo of them, alongside a more precise estimate of what they earn, as part of a campaign on council spending.

It sought specific details late in 2019 from the council and its agencies, and shortly before Christmas, in the case of Auckland Council, was given a list of 34 positions paid more than $250,000, matched to one of four salary bands.

Four earn more than $400,000, including the chief executive's published salary of $698,000.

Five people earn between $350,000 and $400,000, six are on between $300,000 and $350,000 and 19 earn $250,000-$300,000, including one former member of the mayor's staff.

The council's latest annual report showed as at June 2019, 129 staff across the council and its agencies earned more than $240,000.

Asked by Stuff whether the list was a personalised 'name and shame' exercise, Williams said: 'It is what it is.'

'The public is entitled to know who these people are, and what they do,' he said.

The Taxpayers' Union told those it wrote to that local bodies had been wrong not to supply exact salary figures.

'We obtained a decision from the Ombudsman so that the exact amounts needed to be released and that bands did not suffice when the specific amount is requested,' Williams wrote.

Town told Williams the Taxpayers' Union view on the Ombudsman's position was wrong and that ruing applied only to public service chief executives.

He said a more relevant decision was one relating to a request rejected by the Christchurch City Council.

'The Ombudsman concluded that the public interest in such cases is adequately met by the release of the remuneration rate or range for a specified role, irrespective of who may be employed in that role.'

Fifty-three executives across the council group have agreed to pay cuts of 10-20 per cent for six months in response to Covid-19 pressures.

Similar cuts are being taken by the chairpeople and directors of council agencies.

The watchdog groups have compared Auckland Council with those in a survey conducted by its United Kingdom counterpart. It showed the local authority there with the most employees paid more than £100,000 (roughly $NZ200,000) was Essex Council with 35, compared with about 218 in Auckland.

However, Essex is a county council with no metropolitan areas and largely funds health, education and social services, with an infrastructure spend one-tenth the size of Auckland's.