Pat Dougherty: Wellington Water Chief Executive defends 'staff wellbeing' purchases bought with ratepayer money

Wellington Water's boss is defending spending ratepayer money on skincare for staff and mindfulness workshops.

The under-fire agency has confirmed it spent more than $10,000 on wellbeing workshops in the recent financial year - including nutritionists and skin checks.

Chief Executive Pat Dougherty says it's important to be a caring employer.

"Good staff are hard to find - you'll want to attract them and keep them."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now I was telling you earlier that Wellington Water has
released a list of all of its contractors and turns
out they've spent some money is some pretty interesting places
on skincare, mindfulness and nutritionists. Pat Doherty is the chief
executive of Wellington Water. Hypat why are you guys spending
money on skincare and nutritionists?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Look, that's about the wellbeing, health and well being of
our staff. It's all part of being a good employer
and looking after them, is it? And look, yes it is.
I mean a good employer these days, good staff are
hard to find. You want to attract them and keep them. Look,
we can't afford to pay compete with some of the

(00:43):
high playing contractors to consultants, so it's important that we
show that we're a caring employer. And sometimes these sorts
of initiatives spread across the number of staff. We have
a cheap at the price I.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Could just run me through it. So what exactly are
you spending the money on? At the skincare clinic.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
That was skin checks for checking for skin cancer. I
mean a lot of our staff work outside, so that's
just about the welfare of us.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
Stuff okay, And the nutritionists.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
That was a series of workshops for our off staff
and our depot staff about healthy.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Eating okay, and the mindfulness is just like you just
get the mind for fullness people and to relax your stuff,
do you?

Speaker 2 (01:28):
That was a conference workshop fee for some of our
people to go to a mental health awareness as part
of a mental health awareness week. It was a workshop
on it. I mean to put this in context, the
full list of suppliers last year we spent just done
four hundred and sixty six million dollars and the ones
that are attracting attention here we spent a total of

(01:51):
thirty five thousand dollars. I mean, one that was highlighted
was Diving Ski Limited. What are we spending the money
there for? Well, that's for swapping up the chlorin bottles.
Are the oxygen bottles? Are operating apparatus that we use
when we're swapping up chlorine drums and our treatment plants.
Not too sixty at all?

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Really, Okay, thirty five thousand for how many staff.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Four hundred and fifty.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
I'm just getting out my calculated I'm not going to
pretend that I can do that in my brain because
it's about seventy eight bucks per per staff being there.
Look pat for your explanation. Obviously washes and it sounds fine,
But given that you guys are asking for so much
money from rate payers, do you reckon? Rate payers are
going to be thrilled that this is what the money
is being spent on, not on fixing the pipes.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Look, it's frustrating that we should have released these numbers
right from the start and probably wouldn't have atracked for
so much attention. That was an error and they'll be
released very soon. But we have we have been painfully
transparent and our shareholders over the last five or six

(03:00):
months acknowledging that we're not getting value for money, but
we'reness savings out that we had is in the money
we spent with our contractors, our consultants and improving our
financial control.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
Yeah, now listen, speaking at speaking of transparency, how on
earth did you guys lose a report that warned you
four years ago that you had financial troubles.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Well, you appreciate quite a change at the top in
the last last few months. So it was a report that,
to be honest, I didn't know about but have only
been there five or six months.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
But the change just happened in the last few months.
This thing was lost for years.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
Look that I can't explain. I wasn't there then. But
good thing was some of our stuff pointed it out
to us, and we decided that to be completely transparent,
we would talk about that as well. I mean, that's
what we're trying to do, is here our souls. I
can tell you it's not pleasant.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
I can imagine. Pet. Thank you, I really appreciate it.
Pat Doherty, Wellington Water chief Executive. For more from Hither
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