A Napier City councillor has expressed concern around the number of staff leaving the council, just days before the chief executive announced her resignation.
E-mails with these new details were released to RNZ under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act (LGOIMA) just after 3.30pm on Friday, less than 24 hours before voting closes for the local body elections.
Napier City Council chief executive Steph Rotarangi left after a year-and-a-half in the role, when she had originally signed a five-year contract.
She announced her resignation on 27 July.
On 23 July, in an e-mail, councillor Graeme Taylor expressed his concern to Rotarangi about how many staff were leaving.
“Unfortunately over the past year we have lost a number of key senior management staff and as you have highlighted recruitment is a major challenge and we are competing against many organisations, public and private. This loss of staff raises the question of risk to the organisation and both in recruitment and reputational risk as an employer.
“I would assume that the organisation carries out an exit interview process with leaving staff and in particular senior management. I would like you to provide the Audit and Risk [committee] members copies of the exit interviews if , at all possible, so we can determine if there is any one particular factor that is contributing to this loss of staff.”
In a reply the next day, Rotarangi said: “Exit interviews, along with resignation letters, are personal and private information which sit in personnel files and therefore are not able to be shared individually. My understanding however is that they can be released with the individual’s permission so I will ask as appropriate”.
Since March 2022, five of the organisation’s senior leaders had left, she said.
Taylor considered making a request under the LGOIMA himself.
Leading up to 27 July when Rotarangi announced her resignation, most of the e-mail communication between Mayor Kirsten Wise and Rotarangi was redacted under the LGOIMA.
The council said this was due to “privacy regarding personal employment information”.
However, details of a workshop completed with councillors in October 2021, after Rotarangi had been in the role for six months, acknowledged there were acting CEOs in place until Rotarangi arrived and this had made it “more difficult to drive the organisation to deliver on Council’s objectives”.
The release of this information to RNZ came after the council requested an extension for releasing the information.
RNZ has complained to the Ombudsman over the extension.
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