26/2/2019

Timaru District Council is in the final stages of implementing a new structure that will enhance users’ experience of Council’s services, and provide greater engagement with the community.

The new structure, which has seen changes mainly within the Council’s corporate area, brings in new functions enabling better oversight and service delivery for Council’s activities and projects and stronger financial strategy and planning.

Timaru District Council Chief Executive, Bede Carran, said that the while the Council was already working well, a renewed focus on service and project delivery would ensure it better meets community expectations today, and into the future.

“The start of a new Long Term Plan period offers a good opportunity to stand back and check whether you have the tools and skills to deliver this ambitious plan for the community.

“We have a large programme of work over the next decade, and for us to keep the confidence of our community, it’s important that we deliver what we’ve said we will, when we say we will.

“Thanks to good planning and processes in the past, the Timaru District is in a good position financially and infrastructurally, but legislative changes and challenges from everything from climate change to digital disruption and availability of contractors and skilled staff means that going forward we have to adapt the way we work.

“I’m confident that the new structure will enable us to meet these challenges more effectively.”

The main structural change sees the creation of a new Commercial and Strategy Group with a focus on project delivery, policy and strategy, risk and assurance, community engagement and finance.

The new group will be led from April by a new general manager, Donna Cross, who is currently the National Manager of Legal Services for Crown Research Institute, AgResearch.

“We’re looking forward to welcoming Donna to the team at Timaru District Council. She brings a great deal of relevant experience to this role as well knowledge of the primary and secondary sector industries that play an important part in our local economy,” said Carran.

“The changes to these structures are based on improving service delivery, rather than necessarily cutting cost, and I’m confident we can deliver this new structure within our forecast budgets.”

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