What’s on in Council this week by Pat Seymour
Published March 14, 2022 1:37PM
The only formal council meeting this week is the Audit and Risk Committee on Wednesday. This committee is made up of the chairs of all the council committees and is chaired this term of council by independent chairman Bruce Robertson from Queenstown. Many of our meetings are by Zoom so there is little additional cost in bringing Bruce to Gisborne. LGNZ and the Institute of Directors have long been recommending an independent chair for council audit and risk committees. It does bring a wider view to the matters of risk for council.
The first item is the details to be covered in depth in the Ernst and Young (GDC auditors) audit plan for the 2021-2022 end of year. While any matters can be traversed, the auditors have indicated they will focus on infrastructure assets; integrity of the rates strike, rates, invoicing and collection; grants and subsidies; non-financial performance information reporting; controls over expenditure, procurement and tendering; and GDC group consolidation.
It is good for our community and ratepayers to understand the depth of audit that is undertaken independently to protect your investment in council activities.
There is an internal audit report of three significant current spends, the Kiwa pools, the wastewater treatment plant upgrade and the Waipaoa flood control project. There are large dollar amounts from external grants and subsidies beside each of these three projects, $50.7 million in total.
The management accounting team meets monthly with each project team, and monitors and assists with forecasting and cash flows to ensure budget and project milestones are met.
The district is fortunate this large sum of money has been made available and these excellent projects are able to proceed. There are a further $10m of projects from the PGF fund, the East Cape Road and the Route Security Structural review — these projects are in different stages of work.
Non-rateable Maori land and the rates refund review have each had their internal processes reviewed following changes made to the Local Govt (Rating of Whenua Maori) Amendment Act 2021. These changes support whanau and aim to stimulate regional development of whenua by reducing the barriers for owners of Maori land with rates arrears. It also allows multiple blocks of freehold Maori land from a parent block to be treated as one for rating purposes.
Health and safety is a considerable risk area for councils and this paper covers the identified health and safety risks. Health and safety for contractors to council projects also falls to the H&S team and every effort is made within the organisation to protect all of its employees. The top 10 identified operation risks are covered and regrettably conflict, violence and aggression are identified as the most frequent risk event. In the past 12 months no GDC employees were involved in events notifiable to WorkSafe which is a great achievement for a large workforce.
Insurance across the organisation is an important audit and risk matter. GDC takes advantage of its BOPLAS (Bay of Plenty Local Authority Shared Services) arrangement to get the best deals. Insurance cover for material assets is separated into above ground cover (buildings, equipment, motor vehicles) and below ground cover (water infrastructure and flood protection). There is also liabilities insurance, public professional indemnity, statutory and employee cover. The GDC insurance premium is $1.3 million, up 8 percent compared to last year.
There is far more detail on these important items of risk for GDC. The full agenda papers are on the GDC website from today.
Pat Seymour
