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Local Government (Water Services) Act 2025

Miscellaneous provisions - Compliance and enforcement - Compliance orders

306: Chief executive may delegate

You could also call this:

"The boss of a water organisation can give some of their tasks to someone else to do."

Illustration for Local Government (Water Services) Act 2025

The chief executive of a territorial authority or water organisation can give some of their jobs or powers to another officer or employee. You can think of this as a boss giving some of their tasks to someone else in the team. This means the person who gets the jobs or powers can do them in the same way as the chief executive.

When the chief executive gives someone a job or power, they must write it down and sign it. The chief executive can also take back the job or power at any time by writing it down and signing it. If someone is doing a job that was given to them by the chief executive, you can assume they are doing it correctly unless you can prove otherwise.

The chief executive is still responsible for what happens, even if they give some of their jobs or powers to someone else. If the chief executive leaves their job, the tasks or powers they gave to someone else are still valid, as if the new chief executive had given them. There is one thing the chief executive cannot give to someone else - the power to give jobs or powers to others.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=LMS1004883.

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Part 5Miscellaneous provisions
Compliance and enforcement: Compliance orders

306Chief executive may delegate

  1. The chief executive of a territorial authority or water organisation may delegate any of the chief executive’s functions or powers under this subpart to any officer or employee of the territorial authority or water organisation.

  2. A person to whom any functions or powers are delegated may perform those functions or exercise those powers in the same manner and with the same effect as if they had been conferred on that person directly by this Act and not by delegation (subject to any general or special directions given or conditions imposed by the chief executive).

  3. A delegation under this section—

  4. must be in writing signed by the chief executive; and
    1. is revocable at will in writing signed by the chief executive.

      1. A person purporting to act under a delegation is, in the absence of proof to the contrary, presumed to be acting in accordance with the terms of the delegation.

      2. A delegation does not prevent the chief executive from performing any function or exercising any power or affect the chief executive’s responsibility for the actions of any person acting under the delegation.

      3. If the chief executive ceases to hold office, the delegation continues to have effect as if it were made by the chief executive’s successor in office.

      4. The chief executive must not delegate the power to delegate under this section.