Councils hire thousands more staff in five years

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Mon May 14 2007 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)

Councils hire thousands more staff in five years

Monday, 14 May 2007, 8:28 am
Press Release: New Zealand National Party

National Party Local Government spokesman John Carter says Labour “buck-passing” is partly to blame for an explosion in ratepayer-funded staff at councils.

Reports today, say local body wage bills have soared by 50% in five years and the number of people employed by councils rose by almost a third.

“That’s in line with my own calculations based on census figures, which show there were 31,407 people employed in local government in 2001, compared to 38,874 at the 2006 census.”

This represents an almost 24% increase over five years, just short of the 28.7% rise reported in today’s ‘Sunday Star Times’.

“Labour has forced local authorities to beef up their numbers in order to deliver on the dozens of pieces of legislation that have loaded costs on to ratepayers.”

Mr Carter says it is hard to reconcile the build up of extra staff, with the long delays associated with the processing of resource consent applications and planning approvals.

Ends

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