Invercargill mayor Sir Tim Shadbolt is concerned about “factional mentality’’ at the city council and said last week if councillors don’t “cease and desist’’ then the council and its chief executive “do not deserve to stay in office’’.

Sir Tim’s comments were made in a late report to a council meeting on August 25, from which the public was excluded.

The documents from that meeting have now been “proactively released’’ to the media as the council works its way through tasks designed to reassure the Department of Internal Affairs the council can meet Crown expectations that it be a high-performing council.

The council will hold an extraordinary, public meeting at 9am this Friday (September 4) to consider the final version of an action plan the councillors have been preparing at the request of top Department of Internal Affairs official Anita Balakrishnan.

Ms Balakrishnan heads the department’s ministerial advice, monitoring, and operations policy, regulation, and communities branch. 

She wrote to the council in mid-August seeking, among other things, “a clear plan on how the council will address the issues, including a timeline and framework for how success will be measured’’.

Sir Tim said in his August 25 report that he did not think a “simple, direct plan’’ would satisfy the department. 

He considered “extremely serious allegations’’ had been made to the department from within the council and the “best and most prudent” way to address the complaints was to hear from those people who had complained.

He concluded that he was “loathe to continue expending rate payers cash on this plethora of consultants, investigators and lawyers until “the council” can assure itself of a genuine desire to cease and desist from what I believe is its current factional mentality. 

 “If today’s meeting cannot achieve this type of commitment, then this council and chief executive do not deserve to stay in office,’’ Sir Tim said.

Since that meeting, the councillors have agreed to work together and have also appointed an independent governance adviser, Bruce Robertson.

This week’s document release includes the council’s written response to the department, the full list of resolutions from the August 25 meeting and the full list of resolutions from another public-excluded extraordinary meeting on August 27.

A spokeswoman for the council said several notices of motion included in Sir Tim’s August 25 report were considered but lapsed, meaning they were not moved, seconded, or voted upon. 

However, Sir Tim’s final recommendation was resolved by the council: “That the Invercargill City Council formally receives the letter from Anita Balakrishnan and undertakes to seek appropriate high quality independent advice to assist in achieving the objectives contained within the letter.’’

After considering another report, “Framework for Department of Internal Affairs Plan”, at the August 27 meeting, the council resolved, among other things, that Mr Robertson and chief executive Clare Hadley prepare a list of candidates for the council to commission one to undertake an evaluation of the current standard of governance performance.

Other resolutions from August 27 covered issues such as training requests, planning and feedback, budgets, regular dialogue with the department and communication strategies.

The spokeswoman said it was “business as usual’’ for day-to-day operations and services.