South Perth mayor Greg Milner leads vote to block CEO’s plan for external psychosocial assessment of city

The City of South Perth CEO has walked out on stress leave just three months after she was appointed to the top job to turn around the dysfunction and problem plagued council. Several sources within the city have told The West Australian, Liz Ledger, walked-off the job on Tuesday afternoon ahead of the council meeting in which Mayor Greg Milner put forward a last-minute urgent business motion. Mr Milner sought councils approval to block the CEO from engaging independent experts to assess the psychological risks in the dysfunctional city. It’s understood Ms Ledger, who has been working to address poor morale and endless governance issues, sent an email on Monday at 4.10pm outlining serious concerns and her intention to hire Azuhr consultants to conduct the psychosocial review. Mr Milner then put forward his motion to block the review two hours before councils meeting. Instead of continuing with the CEO’s plan, the council will instead hold a staged internal governance approach, including a workshop with councillors, the CEO and the audit and risk committee members. Ms Ledger wasn’t present at the council meeting, and according to sources, she has since gone on long-term stress leave. Corporate services director Bree Websdale and governance manager Toni Fry are also understood to have walked-off the job on extended leave this week. The latest episode of dysfunction at the council came hours after The West Australian reported that the city had refused to release audio of its last public audit, risk and improvement committee meeting, which discussed damning governance and integrity reports that the committee rejected. The city argued it was “not required to” transparently release the audio. In arguing to block the CEO’s psychosocial review, Mayor Greg Milner argued the proposal risked duplicating work already being done by State-appointed monitor Gail McGowan. “This is very, very, very important to get it right, to follow best practice and withstand both councillor and media scrutiny,” he said. Mr Milner originally tried to have the matter dealt with in closed council - which would have porevented the public from knowing about the attempt to stop the review. That was abandoned at the eleventh hour when Cr Tim Houweling argued that there was no lawful reason under the local government act for the matter to be dealt with in “secret”. He was also highly critical of the motion would he said was interfering with the independent work of the CEO. ”I do not know of a circumstance and a time where a local government has reached back and tried to stop a CEO who’s expressly delegated with the role of undertaking an assessment of the psychosocial welfare of the staff members for which she has responsibility, to then look at it and say, as a councillors, we don’t want you to do it.,” Cr Houweling said. He warned that delaying the assessment could have real consequences for staff, arguing the assessment must be done on an “urgent basis” and should be reported back to council “well before” the next ARIC meeting scheduled for July. “By that stage, it’s too late. People will have left the organisation, left, right and centre, as a direct consequence of some of the psychosocial risks that at least the chief executive officer has identified within the email that she sent around to us all,” he said. He also rejected the suggestion that the monitor’s role overlapped with the proposed work as “the monitor is not charged with that responsibility”. Cr Blake D’Souza said he did not have enough information and supporting the motion could represent interference into operational matters. “Within this motion, is there a risk that we would fall shy and be in breach of our obligations under the Workplace Health and Safety Act?” Cr D’Souza asked. Mayor Milner said he “can’t possibly answer that”. “That’s that’s not something I’m qualified to do,” Mr Milner said. Cr Hayley Prendiville said she was “reluctant” to interfere in a decision and action that the CEO had taken because the issue was complex and councillors were given only a short timeframe to consider it. Cr Kathy Lees spoke in support of Mr Milner’s proposal, saying the “decision has not been in consultation with the council” and it was “premature”. Five councillors, including the mayor, voted to stop the CEO from conducting the independent review.