Invercargill City Council's CEO search narrows to four
The Invercargill council's chief executive search has attracted 33 applicants and that has now been narrowed down to a short-list of four.
An announcement about the Invercargill City Council’s chief executive position is likely to happen in late February with four candidates short-listed for interviewing.
Under the Local Government Act, councils must appoint a chief executive for up to five years. Once this period has ended the position must be re-advertised.
Chief executive Clare Hadley’s current contract with the Invercargill City Council ends in March.
The council enlisted recruitment agency Sheffield to advertise the position and that process attracted 33 applicants.
“[It] is much higher than similar councils have got, so we were quite pleased with that,” Invercargill Mayor Nobby Clark said.
The initial plan was to narrow it to about seven and interview those candidates before reducing it again to four.
However, Clark said they have managed to get to a short-list of four and they will be interviewed towards the end of February.
Clark wants the vote to take place soon after the completion of the interviews.
“I would assume by the latter part of February we’ll have an announcement and candidates will know where they stand.”
Clark declined to confirm if Hadley was one of the four short-listed.
“I can’t tell you who the candidates are.”
The mayor, as well as four councillors, were involved in the short-listing process, but every councillor will get to vote on who the chief executive will be.
Two or three councillors - not Clark - will conduct the interviews but Clark, and all other councillors, will get to listen in and observe the interviews.
“It’s so the person is not facing 13 people, which is traditionally what they do.
“We thought it was a bit of an overkill.”
Clark was happy to let others conduct the interviews.
“I like to sit and observe… and it’s about sharing the role. While we’ve got five of us involved in the shortlisting, I want to engage some of the other councillors to do the interviewing.
“It’s not about the mayor driving it, in the end of the day I’ll only be one vote.”
Councillors will reduce the list down to three, then to two, before a vote takes place on those remaining two.
While Clark has just one vote, as all elected members do, he did acknowledge he was the person who would have the most significant working relationship with the chief executive. He hoped his colleagues respected that.
He felt the chief executive appointment was one of the council’s most important decisions.
He expected it would create some unease amongst councillors around who they “gave the nod to”.
“This term we’ve got a really good feel in the councillor group, but we disagree on some things, and that’s okay.
“I suspect we’ll disagree on who the chief executive should be, but that’s democracy.”