Damning Wellington Water report about to land with mayors

Saturday, 1 March 2025

A damning report into Wellington Water has been completed, painting a concerning picture of the costs loaded on ratepayers, it is understood.

The report comes on the heels of new Wellington Water boss Pat Dougherty outlining the raft of issues he found on taking the helm, when he warned shareholding councils, of which Wellington City is the largest, that he needed more money urgently.

But the new report, going to mayors over the weekend or Monday, is understood to reach much further into the financial underbelly of Wellington Water and its use of consultants and contractors.

The utility uses a number of consultants and contractors who form a panel and allocate jobs as they come in.

It is understood the report found that Wellington Water was not getting value for money from this agreement. It also pointed to wider systemic issues with the management of these relationships by Wellington Water, sources say.

The report lands a year on from a horror summer for Wellington Water after decades of under-investment mixed with a dry summer and a massive amount of leaks to set up a situation where taps were at risk of running dry.

Wellington Water is owned by Wellington City, Greater Wellington, Hutt City, Upper Hutt, Porirua and South Wairarapa councils ‒ all who were told to dig deep to fund the region out of the growing issue. It was one of a number of factors behind soaring rates.

While some, but not all, the requested money was provided, questions began to be asked about how Wellington Water was managed.

Wellington mayor Tory Whanau on Friday evening had not seen the full report.

“However, I understand it does respond to some concerns our council has repeatedly raised in relation to value for money and efficiency,” she said.

“We remain committed to working with the region to ensure we deal with our water issues in the best way possible and look forward to working through the report on Monday.”

Dougherty, soon after taking the job, told the Greater Wellington Regional Council just how bad it was and described the organisation as having a “learned helplessness”.

It was the country’s second largest manager of three waters infrastructure yet it did not have its own asset management system, he said.

It instead used the systems of Fulton Hogan and Veolia, both of which contracted to it.

At the time, late in 2024, he was asking shareholding councils for $37.5m over two years for IT system upgrades.

As well as the non-existent asset management system, other systems were inadequate or nearing the end of their lives, he said.