Council records yet another dismal satisfaction rating as chief executive's performance scrutinised

Friday, 26 May 2023

The performance of Christchurch City Council’s chief executive will be scrutinised as councillors decide whether to offer her another five-year contract.

It comes as the council releases yet another dismal residents survey, showing just 43% of people are satisfied with its performance.

The result is up just one percentage point on last year’s 42% – a 15-year low.

It marks a continuing trend of dissatisfaction since 2007, when the council had a 79% approval rating. By 2019 that had dropped to 62% and has continued to fall since then.

Chief executive Dawn Baxendale was employed in October 2019 and her contract comes to an end in October next year.

The council has until April to decide whether to ask her to stay for another five years or go out to the wider market for a new chief executive.

Baxendale has also been plagued by poor staff satisfaction results.

A staff survey, released last month, highlighted “very low” morale and a lack of confidence in the executive leadership team, which Baxendale leads. Almost 1850 staff (72%) took part in that survey – a 25% increase on the 1475 who filled it out last year.

The council’s chief executive performance and employment committee, like the previous council, has appointed an external adviser to help it decide whether to offer Baxendale another contract.

The adviser will assist the committee in setting key performance indicators, a council spokesperson said, and assess the chief executive’s performance against those before helping the committee make a recommendation to the full council.

They will also help the committee make a recommendation to the full council. Baxendale would be able to apply for the role if it were advertised.

The residents survey, released on Thursday, found that people were still dissatisfied with the state of the roads, the water, council’s decision-making and financial management over the past year.

The results come from three different pieces of research, involving a total of 9600 residents.

Baxendale said while there was a lot of room for improvement she was cautiously optimistic about the result.

“Last year’s drop from 49% to 42% was disappointing – like many organisations across New Zealand experiencing the same challenges, we’re going through a rough patch economically and our resources have been stretched.”

She said the council was focused on making change and it was already seeing improvement in some areas.

People were most satisfied with the council’s walk-in customer services, libraries, waste management, the Botanic Gardens, Mona Vale and Hagley Park, education programmes and cemetery administration services.

Dissatisfaction with the council has fallen from 29% to 24%.

Baxendale said the survey had validated the council’s focus on delivering the basics like water, roads and transport and doing it better.

“We’ve owned these results and we’re acting on them – we’re always striving to improve.”