Finding out what QLDC's 18 comms/democracy staff earn proves impossible
We've been trying for a while!
Analysis.
Analysis.
It’s becoming ever more important to discover more about how the Queenstown Lakes District Council’s comms/PR/democracy staff works as everyone from the community to elected councillors, and even senior council staff, is identifying a systemic comms failure as being the root cause of a collapse in council trust.
Before we get too excited about change being in the wind it’s worth saying that there are dramatically different perspective on comms failure. The community and news media view is that the comms machine fails to support open, local democracy and instead is always trying to spin facts so that the council looks good - plus community feedback is often “box ticking” not listening.
After all the comms team told Crux there was no sewage crisis for five months, before declaring the current sewage emergency.
The QLDC senior managers appear to have a totally different view of comms failure. They think they have a great story to tell but it just not getting through to the community or news media. A common refrain from the Miller/Theelen/Lewers power triumvirate is that “we’ve told them (community/media) countless times and still they won’t listen. We need better comms.”