Adelaide City Council spends almost $475,000 on staff travel in three years
Adelaide City Council – ordered by councillors to find $20m in savings through staff cuts – has spent almost $475,000 in three years flying senior managers around the country and overseas.
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Adelaide City Council has spent almost $475,000 on staff travel over the past three financial years, with another $196,500 budgeted this financial year – despite COVID.
The council’s draft annual report details how more than $178,000 was spent sending 75 senior managers and staff on overseas and domestic trips in the past financial year.
The expenditure has emerged as the council embarks on a restructure in a bid to deliver $20m in operational savings demanded by elected members, with at least 250 staff expected to lose their jobs.
The most-travelled council employee in 2019-20 was chief executive Mark Goldstone, who is overseeing the restructure. He made 10 trips to destinations such as New York, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Darwin, Canberra, Hervy Bay and Kangaroo Island costing a total of $25,907.
The most expensive was $9737 for a six-day visit to London and Edinburgh, where Mr Goldstone spent time “networking” and getting “greater understanding of another city’s approaches to major festival event management”.
Travel by his deputy, Claire Mockler, in 2019-20 cost a further $13,314, including a $8168, two-week trip to Helsinki and Berlin “for personal and professional growth, including practical ideas to help grow our organisation”.
Property and commercial associate director Tom McCready spent four days in London meeting with entertainment “representatives” to “visit venues to assess temporary theatre structure”.
He also met with “operators of fresh produce markets” and sought information to the council’s Central Market Arcade redevelopment and redevelopment of the Le Cornu site at North Adelaide. The trip cost $7738.
The most-expensive journey, however, was $11,247 for customer and people associate director Vanessa Godden to spend two weeks in Edinburgh to also gain “greater understanding of another city’s approaches to major festival management”.
Ms Godden said the travel expenses were approved before the $20m operating savings this financial year were ordered by elected members.
“The travel undertaken by our staff in 2019-20 was prior to the pandemic, considered appropriate at the time and approved within the policy and guidelines,” she said.
“For the most part, the travel undertaken by staff was in response to a council decision or formed part of contractual professional development commitments.”
Ms Godden said travel enabled staff and elected members to build relationships and “gather information to bring back to the City of Adelaide, which is then applied to the planning and growth of our city”.
This financial year’s travel budget was $196,500.
“However, travel and learning and development activities have all been restricted, along with other operational expenditure, since the onset of the pandemic and in light of council’s fiscal position,” she said.
“Council has asked administration to reduce operating expenditure by $20m, so it is inevitable that travel costs will be reduced as part of this.”