Three water reform chief executives, hired by the Department of Internal Affairs this year, were paid salaries of $710,000 each, an average 50 per cent pay bump over their previous public sector salaries, ZB Plus can now reveal.

A fourth executive, paid $740,000 a year on a fixed-term contract, did not previously work in the NZ public sector.

Two of the men are now leaving the DIA, and are likely entitled to severance payments, but the department refused to answer questions on the matter, citing privacy reasons.

The salaries are contentious because they are significantly higher than those paid in other areas of the public sector for very similar work and because the size of the new Water Services Entities (WSEs) the executives were hired to run shrank significantly almost immediately.

The DIA originally declined to release the salary information. It was provided this week, more than seven months after an information request was made, at the prompting of the Office of the Ombudsman.

Executives Colin Cramption and Jon Lamonte previously held the top jobs at council-controlled water operators Watercare and Wellington Water.

In those roles, they were last year respectively paid $455,000 and $585,000.

Until last December, Vaughan Payne was paid $375,000-$395,000 a year as deputy chief executive operations at the still-struggling, merged super-polytech, Te Pūkenga. His job was disestablished.

The fourth executive, Michael Brewster, previously ran Tasmania’s TasWater. He started work as an establishment water reform chief in March on a 12-month contract - a stop-gap hire after another candidate pulled out.

The Herald requested the salaries under the Official Information Act in March. In April, the DIA withheld the information on the grounds of protecting privacy – it confirmed only that the salaries were $602,500 to $815,500 a year.

But Ombudsman’s Office pointed the DIA to the Ombudsman’s longstanding position that such information should be public.

“Successive Ombudsmen have held the view that the total remuneration of chief executives or other heads of public sector organisations should be released, affording a greater weight to accountability than to privacy,” Ombudsman Peter Boshier noted in a 2019 case involving the State Services Commission.

The DIA’s inclination to secrecy on the matter, however, appears to remain intact. It declined to say whether the four are entitled to severance if their contracts are terminated.

The questions are especially relevant because of the Labour Government’s rushed revisions to its water reform programme.

It passed legislation last December establishing the four WSEs and the chief executive roles. However it quickly abandoned that plan and replaced the anticipated four WSEs with 10. Consequently, in April, just weeks after hiring the four chiefs, it began disestablishing the original WSEs and the CE roles – apart from entity A, covering Auckland and Northland, which Lamonte heads.

Amending legislation, passed in August, provided for the chiefs to continue working at the DIA, but several have chosen to leave.

Payne remains with the water reform programme, “leading the regional establishment team to stand-up water services entities B, C and D until the respective establishment boards appoint an establishment chief executive for their entity”, a spokesman for the department said.

Neither Lamonte nor Payne’s job is likely to last: the National and Act parties are now negotiating to form a Government, and have promised to replace the water reform plan with their own.

Crampton and Brewster “elected not to take up the opportunity for redeployment and will conclude their work in coming weeks”, the DIA spokesman said.

“This consultation process and related discussions, and any potential impact on those affected are private and confidential between the department and the affected employees. As a matter of fairness, good faith, and compliance with applicable legal requirements, the privacy and wellbeing of those affected will be safeguarded.”

DIA is responsible for implementing the recently defeated Labour Government’s water reforms.

At times the department has been less than forthcoming with information and details related to the controversial programme of change, intended to improve delivery of the country’s drinking, waste and stormwater.

In April, DIA acting deputy chief executive of local government, Hamiora Bowkett, wrote a letter of apology to the Herald after an Ombudsman rebuke over delay.

An OIA request to the department for information went unanswered for 107 days, “62 working days outside the DIA’s extended timeframe” Boshier found.

“...Hamiora Bowkett has assured me that DIA have taken remedial action to avoid reoccurrence of the delay experienced in your case…” Boshier told the Herald.