Scenic Rim performs strongly for its financial sustainability

Scenic Rim Regional Council was given a strong report card for its 2019-2020 financial statements in the recently released Auditor-General's Local Government Report.

Tabled at today's Ordinary Meeting, Scenic Rim Mayor Greg Christensen said the results in the Report confirmed that the community can have confidence in Council's financial management and prudent approach to risk.

"The Report summarises the audit results of 77 Queensland Councils, noting that 70 per cent of Councils spent more than they earned, and that the Scenic Rim was one of the Councils less likely to become financially unsustainable," he said.

"In contrast to the State-wide trends, the Scenic Rim received green lights right across the financial sustainability categories with operating surpluses, the ability to repay debt from operating revenue, and managing assets effectively by having sufficient replacement and renewal investment on assets as they continue to depreciate.

"Put simply, it means we are raising sufficient revenue and sourcing appropriate levels of grant funding to meet the needs of our community and that reflects positively on the hard work of the Council and employees.

"This year's result is evidence of Council's strong financial governance including our internal audit, greater visibility of the audit and risk committee, and improved diligence and focus on procurement policy and procedures.

"Our approach puts an emphasis on local suppliers, responsive trading terms and establishing partnerships with Scenic Rim businesses.

"Our April year-to-date figures reported 31.4 per cent of Council’s contestable materials and services were sourced from Scenic Rim businesses - that’s a shift in the right direction as it was 25 per cent when we first started reporting this metric in January 2020.

"It equates to $1.1 million spent locally in one month, with more and more products that were previously bought elsewhere, now being sourced from local businesses."

The Report also gave Scenic Rim Regional Council top marks for internal controls, which means it has in place effective organisational controls framework comprising of strong control environments, risk assessment programs, IT and cyber-risk controls and monitoring activities.

"The one amber light and one red light in our report indicated that we missed one milestone and had to make some immaterial and material adjustments to our financial statements, which related to a new accounting standard for how we reported on our refuse site (landfill) restoration," Cr Christensen explained. 

"Above all else, we are meeting our legislative requirements and our financial performance was on par or ahead of our other counterparts in rural and regional councils’ category."

A copy of the report is available on the Queensland Audit Office website:

www.qao.qld.gov.au/reports-resources/reports-parliament/local-government-202