Legal threat over Wellington council cleaning contract as staff, mayor at odds

Monday, 30 March 2026

The Wellington City Council is being threatened with legal action as the chief executive pushes on with contracting out cleaning services despite a unanimous vote from the mayor and councillors to look at bringing it in-house.

Mayor Andrew Little worked out a triennium plan with councillors in his first months in office laying out a blueprint to what his council could achieve in its three years. One of the items was to “consider options for in-sourcing where cost-effective”.

In the lead-up to the election he campaigned on and signed a Unions Wellington commitment to begin investigating in-sourcing council services.

First cab off the rank was a tender for contracts for council facility cleaning services which opened on December 2 and closed on February 25. The contract would not start until July 1.

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But a statement this week from a council spokesperson said the matter was “operational” and the decision lay with council chef executive Matt Prosser.

“We are currently undertaking a competitive procurement process for council’s cleaning services and decline to comment at this stage to maintain the integrity of the process,” the statement said.

It comes after a past triennium of distrust between councillors and staff – the latter who were accused of “scaremongering” and pushing an agenda over the sale of airport shares and bias in the controversial deal to buy Reading Cinema land on Courtenay Place.

Little on Thursday said he expected the council to adjust accordingly: 'Myself and councillors will continue to hold officers to these commitments.'

A statement from councillor Sam O’Brien suggested the issue has already been playing out behind closed doors.

“The advice from officers in the working group was that these types of operational decisions aren’t in the hands of councillors and it needs to come through the chief executive,” he said.

He moved an amendment in a March council meeting that council staff explore options to bring cleaning services in house and report back to a financial review working group. It passed unanimously.

“I expect that any future decisions regarding cleaning contracts align with the direction set from this council,” O’Brien said.

In-sourcing gave the council better oversight of services and let it make sure workers were paid fairly and had good working conditions, he said.

Unions Wellington – which successfully lobbied the last council to ditch its plans to sell a 34% stake in Wellington Airport – on Wednesday sent a letter to Prosser threatening legal action.

“In our view, it would be clearly unlawful for you or any subordinate officer to enter into any contract for cleaning services on the council’s behalf which would frustrate the policy of considering/exploring options for in-sourcing such services,” it said.

The role of the chief executive was to implement the decisions of the council even if Prosser had delegation for contracts, it said.

The union warned it was considering applying for a judicial review and seeking an interim order to put the tender process on-hold while in-sourcing was explored.

Unions Wellington co-convenor Sabina Rizos-Shaw said the organisation was concerned the council’s executive leadership team was going against the mayor and councillors and “attempting to prevent the implementation of an inspiring in-sourcing agenda”.

“Right now, ratepayers are paying for private shareholder dividends for cleaning public facilities,” Rizos-Shaw said.