Top city manager first to leave

Top-ranked Tauranga council manager Dean Riley is the first big name to exit since plans to restructure the organisation were announced in December.

Mr Riley, the business services manager and one of the council's four group managers, works his last day today.

That leaves environmental services manager Peter Frawley, city directions manager and deputy CEO Christine Jones and city services manager Ian McDonald as the remaining group managers.

Mr Riley's departure follows the decision to disestablish his job.

The other staff in the first round of departures were strategic business manager Andrew Knowles, landscape architect Tim Lander, city events manager Peter Melgren, planning engineer Barry Somers and senior building officer Brian Swale.

The council is cutting 30 full-time equivalent positions - the net result of an unspecified number of full-time and part-time positions being disestablished and 29 new positions created.

Nineteen of the disestablished positions were already vacant from a process of attrition in which not everyone who resigned had been replaced.