Wellington City Council apologises for library website overspend

Wellington City Council has apologised for spending over $600,000 on a website to draw visitors to the newly reopened City Library.An independent review found shortcomings in the oversight, procurement process and the value for money offered by the site.Chief operating officer James Roberts - the senior responsible officer for the whole Te Ngākau Civic Square upgrade, including the library - said he took "full accountability" for the expense."It is clear from the review there are lessons we need to take from this and I've already started making changes to ensure it doesn't happen again."Managing projects of this size, scale and complexity - such as earthquake strengthening on reclaimed land - is enormously challenging. I accept that one of the implications of this is that I didn't pay enough attention to this element of the project," Roberts said.In June, Wellington's deputy mayor Ben McNulty said he became aware of the bill for the website the day after the Council Grants Committee had been forced to decline $3m in community funding due to a record volume of applications.Wellington's deputy mayor Ben McNultyRNZ / Samuel RillstoneAuthor of the review Colin MacDonald found an ambitious project scope, a rushed tender process and a lack of oversight - beyond the board overseeing the Te Ngākau Civic Square redevelopment - combined to see the website's reach up to half a million dollars more than would typically be spent on a comparable Government website.MacDonald said typical government website costs ranged from $100,000 to $350,000 in comparison.He said scope of the redevelopment Te Ngākau Civic Square informed the project leading to the decision to create a highly polished, stand alone site designed to attract visitors to the newly reopened library."The project team operated under a strong, high-level mandate approved in 2020 and 2021 by Council to drive the regeneration of Civic Square."They considered that the biggest risk facing them was that not enough people would turn up and use the new facilities and the regeneration outcome would not be achieved. This may have given tacit permission to always go for the best. I could find little evidence of wider perspectives (e.g. from the executive leadership team) being brought to bear on the project and its decisions," MacDonald said.RNZ / Mark PapaliiThe report said a rapid "procurement in-a-day" tender process - which used a closed panel to assess proposals across a single day - undermined the market competition for the contract.The tender - which went to market on May 2025 and was scheduled for implementation four months later - saw only two applications from six service providers approached.The successful applicant was determined on the basis of their pitch for the first phase of the project which amounted to an initial expense $75,000 - rather than the likely full project cost.The vendor was then retained for the remaining phases of the project.The report said website's cost represented less that 0.1 percent of the $614M Te Ngākau Civic Precinct programme - which the library redevelopment was a part of - and meant the cost of the site did not trigger further scrutiny beyond the board overseeing the project."Because website spending was within delegated authority and represented a small share of the overall budget, it was never discussed at the programme board, limiting oversight. The programme continued to be guided by its original 2020 and 2021 foundational documents," the report said.MacDonald said the project was allowed to make decisions that had implications for other parts of the council without sufficient consultation.He said - while project leaders believed they had "consulted widely" with other parts of the council - perceptions from outside were that it had become increasingly difficult to influence decisions relating to the project."Some subject matter experts felt side-lined. This became particularly relevant as the website development and implementation progressed," MacDonald said.MacDonald said a council commission value for money appraisal pointing out the cost of the site was "in the premium price bracket" and could have been "an opportunity to pause and reconsider the scope and specification"."A more moderated approach by the project could have delivered a less expensive site that was still fit for purpose in supporting the relaunch of the building, its facilities and services, and the wider Te Ngākau precinct," MacDonald wrote.The report made eight recommendations including developing a Council web strategy, procurement planning based of "whole-of-life" costs for projects, creating a formal value for money framework, appointing independent chairs for major programme governance boards and updating project mandates when council priorities change.Mayor Andrew Little said the council would work towards implementing the recommendations and improving council practises to provide better transparency of costs and value for money for ratepayers."I've been clear that under my mayoralty - when the Council organisation makes mistakes - we front up to the public, we fix those mistakes and we learn from them. That's why I asked for this review, and that's what is happening now."I am satisfied that the organisation has already made good progress on changing the culture and practices that contributed to this mistake, and that work will continue as we look to implement the recommendations of this review," Little said.