9 July 2020

Media: Local Democracy Reporter

Topic: Legal costs incurred for advice about predetermination and governance

Enquiry

Would you be able to please advise me the cost to the council of receiving legal advice regarding predetermination and governance last month - that is, the Tomkins Wake legal advice reported on here?

Could you please also advise how much it cost the council to invite the author of that report to a council meeting on Tuesday this week?

Can you please also advise any other associated legal costs with this issue I may have specifically missed - ie what they are and how much?

Can the council please also calculate the cost of staff time spent on this issue?

Response

See below from the CE regarding your enquiry about legal costs to RLC for advice relating to predetermination.

As per Geoff's response below, staff hours haven't specifically been recorded or calculated. We can do that but it will take more time as there will be additional work required to do that. Geoff has provided an estimate so that may be enough for you but let us know if you want us to attempt a calculation of estimated time involved.

From CE Geoff Williams:

It was important to seek advice in order to try and mitigate the risk that predetermination poses for Council. Councillor MacPherson also requested that the organisation seek legal advice about this.

Part of my role as Chief Executive is to provide support and advice to elected members to ensure Council operates according to best practice in terms of decision-making, and in a way that reflects good governance for this organisation.

The worst case scenario in the case of predetermination would be an affected party challenging a decision through judicial review. There would be significant implications if that happened, including legal costs, loss of public confidence and the cost and time that would be involved in having to repeat consultation and/or decision-making if that were required as a result.

So it is absolutely critical, in guarding against these risks and to ensure we operate in an efficient and effective manner, that Council applies best decision-making practice.

We have not yet been invoiced for all the work undertaken by our legal counsel regarding predetermination. We have been invoiced in the amount of $10,031.70 to date, but have not yet been invoiced for the remainder, including counsel coming to speak to our elected members. We estimate that the total will come to about $20,000.

Regarding staff time, staff hours related to obtaining legal advice are absorbed into business as usual so we don't record that but it's fair to say that dealing with work like this diverts from other tasks. Staff time has probably totaled about 20 hours on this particular matter.