OPINION: The timing and implementation of a workplace culture review at the City of Perth has raised eyebrows.
Seven years of relative calm and cohesion at the City of Perth is about to be shattered just seven weeks on from the latest council elections.
The flashpoint for the fission coming the council’s way at meetings this month is an astonishing set of events that played out in the council chambers on November 18.
Just six minutes before the start of the 5pm ordinary council meeting, an email appeared in the inboxes of councillors telling them a motion would be put forward to launch a review of workplace culture and establish a new culture committee.
Some elected members were blindsided, as was the council’s administration.
Lord Mayor Bruce Reynolds told councillors that up to $125,000 (plus GST) of ratepayers’ money would be used to engage a law firm to conduct the review.
Remarkably, law firm Mills Oakley had already been chosen by the lord mayor.
“Councillors, I seek to move an item of urgent business,” Mr Reynolds announced.
“The nature of this matter is such that delaying it until the next ordinary meeting is not advisable.”
The urgency referred to on the night of the council meeting is at odds with what the lord mayor told the ABC and Business News when questioned.
He insisted it was just standard procedure and good governance when a council has new leadership installed.
“The independent workplace culture committee is the type of process modern, first-class organisations routinely undertake,” Mr Reynolds said.
“The workplace culture review is an opportunity for staff to give their feedback and input into how we as a city are working.”
The motion councillors had only minutes to examine “authorises the lord mayor and deputy lord mayor (David Goncalves) to finalise and sign the engagement agreement with Mills Oakley on behalf of the city.”
It also allows for former staff, who left in the past two years, to be interviewed.
When the opportunity for councillors to speak to the motion arrived, Councillor Catherine Lezer could be seen raising her hand before Councillor Liam Gobbert very quickly moved a separate motion to block anyone else from speaking.
The lord mayor seconded the Gobbert motion and the workplace culture inquiry and committee were rubber stamped six votes to three. It looked planned and deliberate.
Mr Reynolds said preventing discussion “is expressly provided for under the city’s standing orders” and that he “acted in accordance with the standing orders”.
All of the above happened in the absence of the council’s chief executive, Michelle Reynolds, who was on leave.
She was specifically referred to in the terms of reference for the Mills Oakley review, which “directs the CEO to comply with any reasonable written requests” from the law firm.
It’s interesting to compare what the City of Perth’s lord mayor did on the evening of November 18 with concerns that led to an inquiry ordered by the state government into the Town of Cambridge five years ago.
That inquiry found the Cambridge council “failed to obtain quotes prior to engaging the law firm to undertake work and has not applied any procurement processes.”
Each council has its own procurement rules, but committing up to $125,000 outside normal budget considerations – and at such short notice – might raise eyebrows in terms of governance.
“Mills Oakley is a WA Local Government Association-approved supplier of legal services to councils across Perth and is uniquely suited to the task,” Mr Reynolds said.
Whatever reason lies behind the sudden workplace culture review, the Labor government was quick to use it as ammunition against former lord mayor-turned Liberal leader Basil Zempilas.
“This is not the City of Perth anymore, leader of the opposition,” Deputy Premier Rita Saffioti said during question time on November 19.
“I have just seen the new lord mayor announce a review of the type of culture in the City of Perth. I wonder why.”
That just might turn out to be a loaded question.
• Gary Adshead hosts the Drive program on ABC Radio
