Sudden secret city council meeting to discuss Christchurch chief executive

Wednesday, 15 November 2023

A crowd gathers outside the main chamber at Christchurch City Council on Wednesday morning after a council meeting was delayed due to an urgent secret meeting discussing the pay and performance of chief executive Dawn Baxendale.

Christchurch city councillors have spent almost two hours in an unexpected secret meeting to discuss the chief executive’s pay and performance.

The surprise meeting behind closed doors to discuss Dawn Baxendale was announced by mayor Phil Mauger at the start of the full council meeting on Wednesday morning.

“The reason [that] this report cannot wait is because there’s an ongoing statutory process already under way and we need to resolve the next steps,” he said.

Christchurch City Council chief executive Dawn Baxendale is currently on leave and is due back next week.

He said there had been recent developments from the chairperson and chief executive of the performance and employment committee that needed to be considered immediately by the council.

As people left the council chamber, councillors agreed to let Susan Rowe, partner of law firm Buddle Findlay, remain.

Councillors have been discussing the pay and performance of chief executive Dawn Baxendale in an unexpected secret meeting.

Rowe leads the firm’s Christchurch employment and health and safety team, and has been advising on industrial relations issues for 20 years, according to her company online biography.

The closed meeting ran for around two hours, delaying discussion of other items on the packed meeting agenda and causing clusters of council staff and members of the public to wait outside the chamber doors.

The move is unusual, as public-excluded sessions are typically reserved to the end of meetings, and there is already one scheduled for the end of today.

Councillors eventually came out at 11.20am, after meeting for an hour and 50 minutes.

When the public meeting resumed, Mauger apologised to people for having to wait outside the chamber for so long.

“I feel so sorry that we have shagged you around, and thank you for your patience for sitting out there.”

Baxendale went on leave last week. The Press understands she is due to return on Monday.

In late October, a Council spokesperson said they planned to review Baxendale’s remuneration in December as had been done for the past two years.

The council has been approached for comment.

Last week two other senior council leaders also went on leave.

After media inquiries, the council sent an all-staff email saying that Leah Scales, the chief financial officer and one of the council’s most senior leaders, and Peter Keegan, the head of human resources, were on leave and people had been appointed to their roles in the interim.

A council spokesperson said Scales is on sick leave but will return on December 6.

Council did not say when Keegan, who was only employed a few months ago, would return.