Amalgamation of Auckland was meant to save money and make delivery of services more efficient. New numbers are proving it is twice as inefficient as previously.
The original seven Councils had about 6,700 staff. It was projected to need only 4500 or so. But instead, the merged Council has over 11,000 staff. Worse still, almost 2000 of them over $100,000 per annum.
Wait, there’s more – they’re doing LESS work!
Whaleoil (yes, we know, but to be fair, we need to list the source) cites the example of councils processing 12,000 house consents in 2003, while this year they’re only processing 8,000.
All the simple-minded supporters of amalgamation spout the deeply considered theory of “bigger is better”. Like all shallow economic theories, this fails to consider the one core factor: people.
