Forecasting long-term sustainability of local government

Tabled Report 2: 2016–17

Tabled date

2016-10-11

Report year

2016-17

Local government

Entities audited

Not identified in the published HTML audit scope.

Recommendations

1. QAO's text Addressed to: councils improve the quality of their long-term forecasts and financial planning by

   maintaining complete and accurate asset condition data and asset management plans (Chapters 2, 3, and 4)

2. QAO's text Addressed to: councils improve the quality of their long-term forecasts and financial planning by

   implementing a scalable project decision making framework for all infrastructure asset investments (Chapter 2)

3. QAO's text Addressed to: councils improve the quality of their long-term forecasts and financial planning by

   engaging directly with their communities on future service levels (Chapters 2 and 4)

4. QAO's text Addressed to: councils improve the quality of their long-term forecasts and financial planning by

   developing financial plans to explain their financial forecasts and how they intend to financially manage the council and its long-life assets (Chapter 2). 

5. QAO's text Addressed to: the Department of Infrastructure, Local Government and Planning

   allow councils to set their own financial sustainability targets where they can justify that a different target is more appropriate for their long-term sustainability (Chapter 2) 

6. QAO's text Addressed to: the Department of Infrastructure, Local Government and Planning

   strengthen their governance role, including analysing long-term planning documents, to allow the Minister to identify councils in, or becoming, financially stressed (Chapter 3)

7. QAO's text Addressed to: support councils to strengthen their strategic planning by building their capability and capacity to produce 10-year financial forecasts and asset management plans that can be relied on, and are integrated with their annual budgetary processes. They

   support councils to strengthen their strategic planning by building their capability and capacity to produce 10-year financial forecasts and asset management plans that can be relied on, and are integrated with their annual budgetary processes. They should be renewed and updated at least every four years (Chapters 2 and 3)

8. QAO's text Addressed to: support councils to strengthen their strategic planning by building their capability and capacity to produce 10-year financial forecasts and asset management plans that can be relied on, and are integrated with their annual budgetary processes. They

   require councils to include in their annual budget or annual report statements:

   • the long-term financial forecasts for at least three subsequent years after the budget year 
   •  reporting analysis of actual to budget figures (Chapter 2).

9. QAO's text Addressed to: support councils to strengthen their strategic planning by building their capability and capacity to produce 10-year financial forecasts and asset management plans that can be relied on, and are integrated with their annual budgetary processes. They

   broaden the number of ratios required to be calculated over 10 years to include the asset renewal funding ratio, once councils have improved their asset condition data (Chapter 4).

Authoritative report — Queensland Audit Office

Report PDF on QAO