NZ Herald this morning Mon June 15 an article re council spending & altho for some reason does not specify it is the miss-named Ak Supercity would be difficult to think of any other body that would be capable of mismanagement of such magnitude!

bazza wrote: NZ Herald this morning Mon June 15 an article re council spending & altho for some reason does not specify it is the miss-named Ak Supercity would be difficult to think of any other body that would be capable of mismanagement of such magnitude! :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::   The council has so far spent $235 million on a computer system & are committed to spending a further $445 mill on it!   As if this in itself is not bad enough it is proving to be near useless & they are having to use a much more flexible system borrowed from Auckland Transport that Ak Transport managed to build for a mere $2.2 million!   Six hundred and eighty bloody million of ratepayers money down the gurgler. Couple that with the obscene salaries & other needless spending etc. etc. that surely would have been better spent on improving the diabolical road system, but Loopy Len thinks further rate increases, tolls & levies will take care of that problem !!!!!!!!!!   In spite of such ongoing incompetency loopy Len fails to acknowledge that which most of us realised way back that he is probably the worst thing to have happened to Ak city to the extent he wants to stand again for election when even most of his cohorts have stated they will not support him.   At least Wellington ratepayers have learnt from the dismal failure of Auckland becoming a supercity & have firmly opposed allowing the same to happen to them.   Roll on the mayor elections & we can but hope there will be some worthy candidates to choose from.

Sadly there's nothing unbelievable about this at all.  It was obvious to everyone, except Rodney Hide and his cronies, that the setup costs of the supercity would be vast and would outweigh any possible savings.  The biggest rort of all is that Len and his band of councillors don't actually control very much.  The CCO's that were set up control vast chunks of what we think of as council activities, and they are effectively private companies who the council have no direct control of.  All run by boards and chairmen earning huge salaries -paid for by us but seemingly not actually accountable to us and we don't even get to vote them out if we don't like it.

Dagwood wrote: As for the benefits of the Supercity?? That's an embarrassingly small list and certainly doesn't feature savings and service improvements. Why the topic was even seriously entertained in Wellington is beyond me.

Have you guys got actual proof there's been no savings with the super city ?
Because they have cut the hell out of staff and budgets in the AK maintenance .
Water care have taken over the grey and fresh water pretty much shutting down 100s of jobs ( my wife was in water rates ) .
Maintenance contracts have been rearranged and are now done at such low rates it's hard to show a profit.

So unless you have actual proof it's pretty much just hair say and personal opinion at this point is it not ?

What is it with the big spenders of our money that they seem to take into account past disastrous experiences & blindly embark on repeating such disasters. Are they so far out of touch that they have never heard of Maurice Williams defunct from the start, police computer system so called upgrade or the Novapay fiasco?What is doubly disturbing is that these incomprehensible amounts are usually paid to Australian or other overseas companies begging the question of how many tourists do we have to bring in or how much milk product at the expense of our already troubled dairy farmers needs to be exported to make up for such a massive drain on overseas funds for minimum if any benefit.

Dagwood wrote: Sorry to hear about the impact of it on your wife. As for proof, I'm happy to refer to my rates bills and the projected increases. If you could then point to where we are getting better value (East Auckland) then I'm certainly listening. Strikes me that any gains (which are at the expense of those at the coal face) have been more than soaked up by executives, consultants, spin companies and dubious overseas promotional strategies.

So nothing has really changed since the situation prior to the amalgamations then Tyler?  Lots of promises made about how things would be cheaper and better services for the ratepayers of the amalgamating cities but nothing positive delivered at all.
I can remember in my time (32 years) at Manukau CC there always seemed to be a preponderance of temps and consultants in place - all with their respective snouts in the trough to a greater or lesser extent, while existing staff were not being extended in their roles.  I.T. "consultants" always seemed to attract the greatest costs and always had ready and seemingly very sound excuses/reasons why greater investment was needed all of the time to build and maintain computer systems. 
The same would have applied at the other previous City Councils so all of the investments from ratepayers funds from the amalgamating City Councils would in the wash up have had little lasting benefit because what worked in one City woud not necessarily have worked in the Super City.
Any one with half a functioning brain could have predicted this outcome so now we will have to wait until the Greater London Council experience (readers should Google this if you don't already know what this was) gets served up and the Super City reverts back to what it was prior to amalgamation.  How long before that happens is anyone's guess.....
So to lay the blame totally at Len Brown's feet is a tad unfair in my opinion...

Back in the 1990's I was a qualified tradesman working for our local council, and then made redundant when the local councils were forced to combine throughout NZ. I took my redundancy pay, formed my own company, tended for those contracts that I used to do, won them, re-employed many of the old staff and ended up making four times more than I used to.

The HeadOffice fools had kept all of the offices workers on, so no saving there.

Me and my mates were earning bucket loads more as were the other contractors, so no savings there.

Then HO had to employ more staff to suppervise the contractors at extra cost. Not a cent was saved then and hasn't been since.

OK, it wasn't Auckland, but the situation is the same. And luckily we here in the Far North have just escaped being lumbered with an administration centered in Whangarei

 Are you guys being suckered or what?

corosanta wrote: Back in the 1990's I was a qualified tradesman working for our local council, and then made redundant when the local councils were forced to combine throughout NZ. I took my redundancy pay, formed my own company, tended for those contracts that I used to do, won them, re-employed many of the old staff and ended up making four times more than I used to. The HeadOffice fools had kept all of the offices workers on, so no saving there. Me and my mates were earning bucket loads more as were the other contractors, so no savings there. Then HO had to employ more staff to suppervise the contractors at extra cost. Not a cent was saved then and hasn't been since. OK, it wasn't Auckland, but the situation is the same. And luckily we here in the Far North have just escaped being lumbered with an administration centered in Whangarei  Are you guys being suckered or what?