Wellington, July 8 NZPA - Former Alliance MP Laila Harre says her new position with the Auckland Transition Agency was not about ensuring jobs were not lost.

Ms Harre yesterday announced she was standing down as National Distribution Union (NDU) secretary after four years to take up a position with the agency, formed to merge Auckland councils into a single entity.

She will be responsible for overseeing the transition of the workforce and establishing work systems for the new council.

The role will involve "a lot of listening", Ms Harre told Radio New Zealand.

The implications for the workforce would be part of the agency's work, she said.

"What I know is that it will work best with very strong active engagement and participation from staff, from unions, from current council management and I see my role as being to facilitate much of that."

She would not confirm whether jobs would be lost and said it was not her role to assure everyone would keep their jobs.

"The legislators will decide whether there are any limitations on issues like redundancies."

The transition agency was charged with making the move to a unitary council as smooth as possible for current employees and the communities, Ms Harre said.

"The transition agency has a pretty big job to do over the next 15 months to ensure that there is continuity of services, that we keep getting what we expect from local government and that a new local government structure is up and running from November 1, next year."

Current NDU president Robert Reid will take over as secretary from next month.