11
chief executive's
report
a y e a r O f C h a l l e n g e s ...
The twelve months ended 30 June 2006 has been the most
challenging year faced by City Care since its formation
in 1999.
Trading conditions for the first half of the year were
particularly difficult. Margins were under pressure and the
company faced the continuing impact from the run-out of
some unprofitable work. Overhead costs were also very
much a focus of the management team. A range of initiatives
were implemented across all areas of the business and some
one-off adjustments also made pertaining to previous
financial years.
The second half of the year generated a much improved
result although the company continues to face ongoing cost
pressures, particularly with respect to materials, bitumen,
diesel and labour costs.
There have been major changes in the City Care corporate
team with the resignations during the course of the year of
the Chief Financial Officer, Managing Director, National
Facilities Manager and recently appointed Commercial
Manager. We have also had changes at the branch
management level with the New Plymouth Manager
relocating to Tauranga to take over the manager role there
and a new manager being appointed in New Plymouth.
In addition to the loss of senior managers, we continue to
battle higher staff turnover rates than we would like across
the company due to the national shortage of skilled labour
and large number of opportunities for staff in the greater
contracting market.
a n d s u C C e s s e s
However, despite the challenges, the year was also marked
by some significant achievements.
Key amongst these was City Care winning the Northern
roading network maintenance contract for Christchurch City
Council. The contract has an annual value of $7 million and
covers the full range of roading network maintenance
activities. This was a major win as it has gained the company
re-entry into the roading maintenance business after being
out of the sector for many years.
1 July 2006 saw the successful commencement of the parks
maintenance contract for Tauranga City Council. Also during
the year we tendered for and won the remaining parks
maintenance contracts for Tauranga City
Council, doubling the size of our Northern
Region parks business.
Our Auckland team won the Metrowater fire
hydrant maintenance contract. This contract,
along with the rollover of the North Shore
City Council parks contract and the Manukau
Water pumps maintenance contract, has
greatly improved the future viability of the
Auckland branch.
To move City Care forward and to ensure
that all opportunities for improvement are
being maximised we established a new
"Leadership Team" during the year. The
creation of this broadened leadership team
has allowed a greater number of managers
to contribute more fully to City Care's
direction and has resulted in increased
enthusiasm from all managers to continue
making enhancements that will secure the
company's ongoing success.
During the year we successfully
implemented our Behave Safe programme
a massive undertaking in training all 800 of
our staff in the ethos and mechanics of this
behavioural based health and safety system.
We have been rewarded with a heightened
sense of the importance of keeping each
other safe through steadily increasing
numbers of observations each month.
Onno Mulder, Chief Executive
