MidCoast Council is already working towards the recommendations in the recent financial management and governance performance audit report carried out by the NSW Audit Office.
General Manager, Adrian Panuccio explained the findings of the audit, which was tabled in NSW Parliament today, do not come as a surprise to the Council.
“Many of the issues raised within the report are reflections of the discussions we had with the performance audit team prior to the audit,” Mr Panuccio said.
He added the recommendations were consistent with the improvement path Council has been on since early in 2021.
“The report highlights that our financial governance has progressively improved, which is a positive reflection on the work we have done to continually review and improve our financial and governance systems and processes.
“The audit process has provided a learning opportunity and we actively participated in the process to obtain full value of the results.”
Mr Panuccio said this was despite concerns over the narrow focus of the audit and the missed opportunity for it to provide significant value to the local government sector by taking a wider view.
“Generally when a performance audit is undertaken a number of councils are reviewed to be able to draw comparisons and identify common issues and challenges. In this case the Audit Office chose to conduct an audit over a single council which doesn’t, in our view, deliver the same benefits of comparing the situation and challenges in different types of Councils.”
Mr Panuccio said Council had put their objection to this approach on record.
“We also have urged the NSW Audit Office to undertake an audit of the State Government merger process to ensure that lessons learnt are captured and future mergers are appropriately planned and supported.”
The report acknowledged the significant challenges experienced by MidCoast Council following the 2016 merger which required the transition from four separate financial management systems to one consolidated system.
Mr Panuccio said Council’s position was supported by Stephen Coates, the Chair of MidCoast Council’s Audit Risk and Improvement Committee.
The Committee’s role is to independently review and provide advice on how Council is functioning and managing risk.
Mr Coates said that Council’s risk management framework and its internal audit function gives him comfort that Council is doing things the best way they can for their communities.
“My experience has been that MidCoast Council has been maturing its financial management since late 2018. In the last two years in particular formalised governance arrangements for key budget decisions have been in place, and Council has also improved its approach to delivering financial management reports.”
Mr Coates said there are always opportunities for improvement under consideration and these are reported regularly to the Audit Risk and Improvement Committee, however welcomed the further insights and improvement opportunities the report presents.
MidCoast Council’s full response to the audit report, along with the audit report, can be found here;
