The council has witnessed an exodus of senior staff in the past 12 months, with four of the city’s five directors leaving to pursue other opportunities, mainly in state or local government.

The departures of Stan Liacos, Pauline Gordon, Marg Allan and the imminent loss of presentation and assets director Darren Fuzzard has prompted an internal review.

Results from the annual community satisfaction survey released last week showed a sharp decline in the council’s approval ratings across five of the seven key indicators.

Public satisfaction in the council’s overall performance, overall direction, customer service, advocacy and roads maintenance all dropped significantly in the last year.

Mr Niemann said any suggestion the senior staff members were “jumping out of a sinking ship” was a complete misrepresentation.

“I don’t think we will have any difficulty in attracting quality people to apply for the roles that we will be advertising in the future,” he said.

“The executive staff that have left the organisation in the last 10 or so months have generally done so after being in the organisation for quite a number of years and most of which have gone to other positions of significance in local government or state government.

“I take that as very positive that those people are regarded as quality leaders and managers, are quality technical experts in their field and they are being recruited for that reason.”

Mr Niemann said the council would undertake a review to determine a leadership structure that would “deliver the best outcome to the community in the future years”.

“Our organisation is a high performing organisation where the culture’s very strong and we need to continue to build on that,” he said.​