A Tale of Two Cities: here’s your chance to be a council CEO

Saturday, 17 August 2024

Job Description: Chief executive officer ‒ Wellington or Christchurch City Council

Report to: Mayor, councillors. And ratepayers will think you do.

Pay: Less than the private sector.

Are you ready to step into a role in which victories are rare, but your fails are publicly highlighted? Do you thrive under constant pressure, are you able to swiftly and cheaply fix infrastructure problems caused by decades of neglect and massive earthquakes, or find money where there is none? Can you juggle the demands of politically divided councillors, frustrated ratepayers, overstretched staff, cyclists who want more bike lanes and motorists who prefer to drive unimpeded by road humps and fit people dressed in Lycra?

While CEO of a city council seems like the ultimate lose-lose job, those who’ve done it beg to differ and look back on it with a mix of civic and personal pride. Go for it, but with your eyes wide open is their advice as the top job comes up in both Wellington and Christchurch.

Wellington City Council chief executive Barbara McKerrow is not seeking an extension to her five-year term, which ends on March 1, 2025.

Christchurch City Council chief executive Dawn Baxendale resigned last November, days after a behind-closed-doors meeting in which her position was discussed.

Christchurch has not said when they hope a new CEO will be in place. Applications closed on July 28 and interviews start this month.

Wellington, which is yet to select a recruitment firm, has said the expectation was a new CEO would be appointed by the end of this year.

Really though, isn’t CEO of a city council a difficult and complex job with pay that compares poorly to the private sector?

Yes, and no, say former Wellington CEO Kevin Lavery and Tony Marryatt, who led Christchurch out of the 2011 earthquake.

And, how can a council CEO meet the expectations of thousands of ratepayers. Answer: they can’t, but they can take pride in serving the community.

Wellington City Council’s 2022/23 annual report listed McKerrow as earning $513,970, while Baxendale was on $548,548. Chief executives of the top New Zealand Stock Exchange companies earned an average of $2.29 million a year in 2022.

Lavery, Wellington CEO from 2013-2020, now heading the Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board in England, says the job is not all about pay, though council CEOs are underpaid compared to private sector counterparts.

“A council like Wellington is far bigger than most private sector organisations, is way more complex and always in the public eye. It's a very tough job,” he says.

“I know because I've done it and I've been a CEO for a successful start-up and have run large divisions of FTSE 100 companies with turnovers that dwarf most New Zealand companies. If you dumb down the salaries then the talent will eventually move to other sectors.”

Balancing the desires of ratepayers and councillors could be more difficult than appeasing shareholders, he tells The Post.

“It sometimes felt like the public wanted ‘Swedish services funded by American taxes’. This is attractive on the surface but is totally unrealistic. Politicians get elected by being popular. It often falls to the CEO to ‘speak truth to power’, to get the politicians to face up to the realities.”

And the rewards?

“What a council does touches the whole community and can make a huge difference to the city for good or for bad. As a council CEO you see projects you got involved with at the outset deliver and make a big difference.

“Most important, I saw the impact on people ‒ a young person undertaking a training scheme with the Council and gaining a full-time job there as a result, a tenant moving into a new, rented apartment and a developer getting consent for a project that creates hundreds of jobs for Wellingtonians.”

Marryatt was CEO in Wairoa District, Southland District, Hamilton ‒ where he clashed with mayor David Braithwaite ‒ and Christchurch.

His local government career ended in 2013 when he felt he had lost the support of the majority of Christchurch councillors amid the torrid post-earthquake era. Two years earlier ratepayers turned up at the civic offices to protest against his $68,000 pay rise.

Job security was an issue for CEOs, as it depended on whether most on the council liked you. He survived four contract renewals in his career: “but it’s not a nice time”.

Councils could advertise your job while you are in it, and even if the CEO was reappointed “it was never the same”. CEOs tended to leave if their job had been advertised.

Every three years, there was a new council “and you start at zero, you start again”.

“You’ve got to have a thick skin, but it is a great job, the pluses far outweigh the minuses, you’re running a big organisation, and can really make a difference,” Marryatt says.

“It's harder than a private CEO job where you've got two goals, make a profit, grow the business. Your first issue as CEO is the mayor and council won't have the same vision,” he says.

“No matter what decision the council makes, there'll be some councillors that are against it, they will speak up and the media is more than happy to print that. Every decision becomes a great debate.”

Balancing the relationship with the mayor was also a tricky one. On the council the mayor was just one vote, so the CEO gives votes to the council - not the mayor.

“If I started giving recommendations that the mayor wanted, I lose my credibility … I had to give professional advice.

“I worked for a mayor who didn't have the support of council, so we didn't talk for two-and-a-half years, but the council still functioned, because I just made recommendations to council.”

“While it's helpful to have a strong relationship, the worst thing that can happen is if a mayor suddenly says we’re going to do something, expects the CEO to make it happen, and the council disagrees.”

Which brings us to the CEO-mayor relationship, something exposed in Gore when young new mayor Ben Bell and long-serving CEO Stephen Parry fell out spectacularly.

Crucial to that governance-operation relationship working well is a “no surprises” policy, say both Dame Kerry Prendergast, a three-term mayor of Wellington, and Bell, New Zealand’s youngest mayor.

“The relationship between a CEO and the mayor is the most critical relationship, in my opinion, then your fellow councillors and then the community,” Prendergast says.

“It needs to be based on trust, respect and integrity but there must be a clear division between employer and employee ‒ so very professional.

“After the election I had meetings to share what my vision as mayor was that had got me elected so the organisation could pivot if necessary to deliver on those objectives. Then we had regular weekly meetings, and an absolute no surprises policy.”

That’s not what happened in Gore. Bell and Parry hit trouble on day one, with their efforts at post election communication going awry. After the election, Parry phoned Bell, a call which went unanswered.

Bell said: “He did call me but I didn’t see it. I don’t have any evidence he left me a voice message, either … you would kind of expect an email or a text.”

Parry left Gore District Council last year. Bell told The Post though the pair did not get on, they were still able to make progress.

“It’s incredibly important (to have a good relationship) to do the job effectively. I would preface it with saying that it's not like you can't do the job without it,” he said.

With his new CEO “we communicate all the time, and there's no surprises, no constantly looking at every corner and things coming out of you.

“But you can definitely still do the job. It's not impossible, it just makes it a lot more easier. It’s like any job, if you have open communication lines it makes it a lot easier.”

Former Wellington mayor Justin Lester said job experience would be important in choosing the new CEO.

“You want someone that's deeply experienced in local government, or an adjacent industry or sector,“ he says.

“They've got to have a good vision, but they also have to understand that fundamentally, they're a public servant. It is the role of the chief executive to deliver the decisions of the elected mayor and councillors.

“They need to be able to lead an organisation that delivers many services. They need to be able to inspire their workforce, but also inspire the city.

“But it's a great job and you have a wonderfully loyal workforce. Some city council employees literally love Wellington, they love serving their city. So I think it's a real privilege to lead that organisation.”

Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) chief executive Susan Freeman-Greene told The Post council CEOs played important community roles, moreso in difficult economic times.

“Chief executives ultimately serve the public, and you do the job because you are motivated to see your community thrive,” she says.

“Councils … are facing a range of financial pressures and a need for infrastructure investment. The role of chief executive is challenging but hugely rewarding.

“As with all critical leadership roles, councils need to remain an attractive employer to attract the right talent.”