I thought carefully before criticising the Government’s appointment of Doug McKay as the interim CEO of the new Auckland Council. There is nothing wrong with people moving between the private and public sectors, and on the strength of media reports Mr McKay has considerable experience as a corporate CEO.
But given the widespread public concern about the Government’s handing over of 75% of Council operations to council owned companies run by hand picked business appointees, I would have thought this was an opportunity to reassure Aucklanders that corporatisation wasn’t the game plan.
Mr McKay has no public sector, or local government experience, and said this morning that when he became CEO of Sealord it didn’t matter that he didn’t know anything about the fishing industry as the organisation was full of people with industry experience he would rely on. I am not convinced by this argument and if it is what persuaded the Government, that just illustrates the poverty of their approach to the super city.
This isn’t simply a big corporate restructuring job. The creation of the Auckland Council is making a constitutional change to our system of government. It is intensely political, and Aucklanders are understandably sensitive about the loss of their democratic rights under John Key’s hyper-centralised and corporatised set up.
The partnership between public servants and politicians is how we make the machinery of democracy work. The risk with Mr McKay’s appointment is that the chief public servant of Auckland comes to the job at a very delicate time with no experience of that tradition.
I agree that there’s a risk having someone with no public sector or local government experience. But he seems like someone acceptable to both the right and the left, as NZ Herald reported: “Auckland City Mayor John Banks and Manukau Mayor Len Brown, vying to be the first mayor of the Super City, welcomed the appointment.”
I suppose the risk can be minimised if the next layer below him is properly chosen. That layer is probably where we also need to keep a close eye on.
I thought it was amusing that a guy that ran a company that specialises in selling alcoholic lolly water to kids was appointed to the position just a couple of days after the article on Campbell Live condemning RTDs.
Hes an ex teacher , so it cant be all bad.
But his comment about Sealord and didnt know anything about seafood seems funny in the light of the new Super City where he is not coming into a smoothly running enterprise. No one will even know where the toilets are on day one.
I knew Doug and his family from years ago and have watched his career with some interest. If anyone can run the Auckland Super City with any success, i would expect it to be him. Time will tell of course but being a Westie, i wish him every success.
I agree with him that to be CEO you do not need direct experience of a particular industry. My only question is ;
how will his lack of local government knowledge stack up against the CCO’s? Someoen with LG experience might well have the electorate responsibility in the forefront or back of their mind, the CCO’s are not appearing to need to take any such thing into account…
“Change” management is going to be huge because the first place the CCO’s will look to is their bottomline, and to make the balance sheets look very good early on they will shed staff and make pseudo savings on salaries.
A culture shift is not in and of itself a bad thing but be wary the massive loss of institutional knowledge. When change comes along, of personnel you dont just lose the ones you dont want, you lose some of your best people too in the uncertainty and collapse in moral that always follows major restructure.
These are obviously seen as his qualities. However part of Council business, imo, is the community. The tension between community and corporate objectives is strong in the proposed Bill. Despite attempts at reassurances I am not feeling at all reassured that this tension si going to be resolved on any side other than in favour of corporate.
I wish him the best of luck and hope he is a success ( of course we all have our own definitions of what that success will look like). I am one Aucklander prepared to wait and see before judging him.
It’s also about values, especially as he mentioned something about developing the new supercity culture. I would be suspicious of the values of someone who was happy to lead industries that profited from promoting and selling alcohol to young people, and from taking scarce resources from the sea.
What about values of inclusion, respect for diversity, social justice etc. Where does he stand on these?
With these jobs there’s advantages and disadvantages with all the candidates, I guess you need to look at the individual and decide 1. How they will cope with the workload/stress of the job 2. Will they foster good relationships with and between staff/councillors/the community 3.Will they stand up for minority/groups/interests against powerful vested interests 4. Do they understand the culture of the society they are dealing with.
He may be handy when it comes to dealing with the council CCOs, since he knows how business enterprises are supposed to operate though I suspect he will get frustrated dealing with the hundreds of small community groups he will encounter as business people don’t have to worry about public opinion, just the bottom line.
When I started my working career, I was turned away from many job applications as recruiters then only soulght people with industry experience. Thankfully times have changed and even if you do not have industry experience your ability to do the job is measured on more that that. In fact recruiters will tell you that industry experience is looked on favourably but it is not necessarily essential. If you are not convinced by this, what induatry experience do you need to be a politician?
This site really does need an edit function….replace soulght, with sough above.
@ indiana – I was’nt arguing that a CEO or any position always needs industry experience. Read the last two paragraphs of the post.
If, as some say the new Mayor will be the second most powerful politician in NZ, the CEO will be right up there too… in power
The fact that this is ven being debated indicates just how far apart the political class has taken itself from the mainstream of NZ. Was a day when local politics were a part-time voluntary effort by genuine members of the “real” community supported by a limited coterie of professional bureaucrats (Town Clerks in the main)
Now it would appear to some, you have to be a professional Sir Humphrey to be successful because …? Possibly because politics, local and national, has distanced itself from the voting snf psying public. Civil Service is no longer service to those who pay and vote, it is an end in itself with the bureaucrats making the rules for the public to follow. How did this 180 degree turn occur?
One can only point to Mr Marx (no … not Groucho) and the socialisation of economies and political systems.
Time to roll back the red tide methinks.
I predict we are going to have a really low rates bill in 2011 paid for by massive borrowing… While out and about at work I had two different people mention the reforms and how pissed off they were – unprompted..!
They can hide to debt for a year or two but they won’t be able to disguise the loss of service. You’ll notice it when you go to register your dog, complain about your neighbours noisy chainsaw, or when your local sports clubs grass doesn’t get cut. They’re not huge things but people will notice straight away.
As an asides, the Howick people are up in arms because they don’t like their board area being called Te Irrirangi. Not a big deal you would think- but they are having public meetings already. With local government small things matter.
A birdie told me that the jokes in-house at regional and council levels were running hot today with variations on the ‘liquor’ theme e.g. we’re going to be working out of Alcopop service centres, there’ll be a neighbourhood alochol service centre coming your way soon, will my position be retitled champagne lifestyle adviser?
Frankly, the appointment is a big fingers up to any candidate with local body experience, and a big fingers up to the region’s existing CEO’s, virtually all of whom had come up through local body roles. What a way to denigrate them and diminish their experience! Would it be any surprise that small ‘bombs’ will be planted around the place as booby traps?
The whole sorry saga is descending into farcial territory… shame we don’t have any decent satirists around to write about it.
Given what is happening how could any satirist compete?
Ha ha, we made a few cracks about putting a drug dealer in charge of the loot today too…