Like many other organisations, Auckland Council is preparing for how widespread community transmission of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 might affect its services, service delivery, workforce and customers.
Auckland Council chief executive Jim Stabback says the council is doing what it can to plan for the impacts of an Omicron outbreak and, while some of those impacts can’t be mitigated, there are some important considerations to be made.
“We’ve taken a not if, but when approach to our planning and we’re thinking carefully about how the council delivers essential services if our region and our own workforce are affected by Omicron,” Stabback says.
“You only need to look at how Australia has been affected, with large numbers of people having to isolate or stay home to recuperate.
“The knock-on effect is seen in areas like manufacturing, supply chain and delivery of critical services.
If a large percentage of Auckland Council employees were unable to work, some of our services and facilities like libraries, pools and leisure centres, and community venues may need to close or operate in a limited capacity.
“While we may also see this happen as a result of increased (government-led) restrictions due to community cases, we acknowledge that we may also have to make some hard decisions around the continuation of these services ourselves.”
Staffing, workforce distribution and the high likelihood of exposure events or council sites being locations of interest could all play into these decisions, he says.
“It is also important that we do everything we can to protect the ongoing delivery of the critical services that we operate,” Stabback says.
“These are the things that Aucklanders need from us – not just the services that they want or are nice to have – like waste collection, cemetery and crematoria services, water services that we deliver alongside Watercare and some of our regulatory and compliance services.
“Delivery of these services may look different or be pared back somewhat but what is most important is our ability to still deliver the most critical aspects of our business.
“We will also support our council-controlled organisations to do the same.”
