A new chapter for Council

This week we opened a new and significant chapter in Council operations by welcoming a new Chief Executive to the organisation. Blair King’s first day with us was on Monday. Traditionally, his welcome would include a full pōwhiri with his family, Council staff and guests from partner organisations gathered at Memorial Hall in Kaikohe. That was not possible this time due to the high number of Omicron cases we are seeing in our district. Instead, we opted for a significantly pared back welcome with a maximum of 20 guests gathered at our Kaikohe meeting chambers. We applied strict COVID-19 protocols, including 2m distancing, mask wearing and takeaway refreshments after the event. Councillors, staff and representatives of partner organisations were invited to attend online.

Blair comes to us from Tararua District, but he was raised in Kaipara and became an engineer at Kaipara District Council. He was later General Manager of Lakes Engineering, a Queenstown and Lakes District Council CCO, and then spent 12 years as CEO of Tararua District Council. Blair is a Chartered Professional Engineer, Justice of the Peace, and Engineer with the Urban Search and Rescue Taskforce.

Blair has some big shoes to fill. Outgoing Chief Executive, Shaun Clarke, has transformed Council operations, creating an organisation that others look to. That is not an idle boast. We have been recognised nationally for our innovations, such as our hybrid working model developed in response to COVID-19 lockdowns. This allows staff to work mostly from home and was recently named the country’s Best Workplace Flexibility Program by the HRD Awards NZ. Our strategy to get 100 per cent of our district connected to the digital world, Nothing But Net, won an award at the 2021 Taituarā Society of Local Government Managers Awards, and in February our Paihia Wastewater Treatment Plant upgrade won the Excellence in Project Innovation Award from the Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia.

We were one of the first Council’s to join the CouncilMARK local government excellence programme in 2017. This assesses local authority performance across key areas. We increased our rating after our second assessment in 2021. This was largely due to 34 transformation projects that Shaun launched to improve our capability, systems and service delivery, as well as capacity to deliver infrastructure projects. That has paid off. Last financial year, we completed 94 per cent of the district’s capital works programme, a big increase on the roads and footpaths we have been able to deliver historically. We have joined the digital age with around 90 per cent of our services now available online, allowing you to make applications, report faults and pay for services from anywhere with an internet connection. Those are just a few accomplishments achieved in the past five years with Shaun at the helm. He has been an inspirational leader at a time of unprecedented challenges, and I want to thank him for helping to make our district a great place to live. Shaun will spend the next week familiarising Blair King with key issues, workstreams and processes. His last day with Far North District Council is on 31 March.