Clare Hadley departs early from Invercargill City Council
"From last Friday Michael Day has been appointed formerly. Clare has indicated her preference not to be engaged with the organisation beyond that point.”
Clare Hadley has officially finished at the Invercargill City Council despite her contract running through to March 18.
The council announced last Wednesday that it had appointed Michael Day as its new chief executive. He replaces Hadley who had been in the role for five years.
Invercargill Mayor Nobby Clark confirmed it was decided that Day would take over immediately and the council would pay out Hadley for the remainder of her contract.
“So, from last Friday Michael Day has been appointed formerly. Clare has indicated her preference not to be engaged with the organisation beyond that point.”
“Council will be required to pay her out for the remainder of her contract which is March 18, about three weeks.
“She has officially finished with council,” Clark said.
Clark said that arrangement was his preference, but he acknowledged Hadley did have the right to work through her contract if she wished.
“At the end of the day, given the new chief executive has come from the executive leadership team that sits below Clare previously, I think that would have been a difficult three weeks. We were prepared to go to [March 18] if that’s what Clare wanted but she indicated she was prepared to finish up,” Clark said.
“We can move on.”
The mayor and each of the 12 councillors got one vote each when deciding on its CEO and it was Day who ended up with the majority of votes and the job.
Day has been the council’s finance and assurance group manager for the past two and half years after previously working for the Christchurch City Council.
Hadley has overseen significant change at the Invercargill City Council during her five years at the helm.
Soon after the announcement last week Clark himself acknowledged the work Hadley had done.
“It’s fair to assume she has done some hard work. I acknowledged quite some time ago that doing change management at an organisation is extremely difficult.
“Taking a organisation that was poorly preforming - and that’s my view of the world…. It took quite a great deal of skill in her area to get the organisation to a position it’s in.”
When Hadley was appointed CEO she was asked to find $500,000 in savings from its operational spending, amongst other things.
Early in her tenure Hadley also uncovered a $4.5million budget blowout attached to the council’s Don St property development which was put in place prior to Hadley’s arrival.
In her first year in the job Hadley made the call to remove staff from the Southland Museum and Art Gallery as it was deemed an earthquake prone The museum has remained closed, and “Project 1225” launched to get a new museum built by December 2025.
In 2020 Hadley led a staff restructure that saw 20 jobs cut and 13 new roles created.
Nineteen further jobs had their titles and duties changed.
All the outlined work Hadley has undertaken might not have proved to be popular but was deemed necessary.
During the majority of Hadley’s tenure Sir Tim Shadbolt was Invercargill’s mayor and the relationship between the pair was often tense. At times it spilled into the public through the media.
An independent report described the working relationship as almost non-existent.