Council independent financial review: Recommendations

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Council independent financial review: Recommendations

During the course of the review PwC identified a number of recommendations and next steps. Some of these were already in progress or have now been addressed. Others can be implemented as part of subsequent annual planning or LTP processes.

Recommendations

Recommendations adopted or in progress:

- monthly reporting to succeed quarterly reporting

- adding balance sheet/cash flow information to monthly reports

- increasing the analysis and explanation regarding key financial decisions in public reporting

- ensuring consistency in the content and set up of monthly reporting and annual plan budget presentations

- applying more stringent analysis to LTP assumptions, in particular regarding capital expenditure, rates and debt

- fully explaining any major variances from budget and analysing the implications of the variance.

Recommendations for subsequent consideration:

- create smart financial summaries and trend data that facilitates greater governance focus on the overall position of RDC as opposed to individual portfolios and projects

- broaden the analysis of debt levels to expand treasury policy reporting and regularly examine the links between debt, rates, revenue and capital expenditure

- increase the use of financial metrics both as a tool for analysis and as a transparent means of communication

- address the systemic issues relating to budget reforecasting, accounting process simplification and expense focus outlined in section 4

- initiate preliminary reporting of financial performance benchmarks13 required by statute to be reported within the upcoming 2013/14 Annual Report

- investigate the merits of seeking a credit agency rating given the potential to reduce finance charges below the annual cost of rating

- review the merits of further enhancing monthly reporting to better meet the needs of reader segments (operational, executive, elected member) including non-financial and trend reporting

- consider pre-planning the LTP programme in detail and report through to council before implementing

- consider the opportunity for elected members to attend the Local Government New Zealand financial governance know-how programme in parallel with the LTP programme

- review existing capital project business case processes with reference to Treasury's Better Business Cases (BBC) Guidelines utilise the compulsory development of 30 year infrastructure plans as part of the 2015-25 LTP, as an opportunity to test RDC financial
sustainability beyond the required 10 year financial strategy outlook

- build on the current proposed organisation structural changes to improve financial awareness and capability in the wider management group while continuing to enhance financial information that meets business needs.

Finally, we would recommend following management's review of these
recommendations, that they develop a programme to implement those
adopted over the next 1-2 years.