Local Authority LTCCP Financial Analysis

The information in these resources was compiled from final long-term council community plans (LTCCPs) by the Strategic Analysis and Information Team, Local Government and Community Branch, Department of Internal Affairs. The following points should be noted with regard to the information contained:

• As at publication all 85 councils have released their final LTCCPs and all are therefore included in this summary.
• The metropolitan, provincial and rural sector groupings are based mainly on the sectors used by Local Government New Zealand. In the analysis section debt is calculated for 01/07/09 by subtracting figures from net financing cash flow statements from the debt given as of the end of 2009/10.
• Weighted figures are on a per dwelling basis, and include both occupied and unoccupied dwellings. Total dwellings were identified using the 2006 Census and forecast using Statistics New Zealand’s medium growth population projections. These are forecast at 5 year intervals from 2006 to 2031. To allow us to weight figures falling outside the years with forecast figures we have presumed a straight line trend occurs during the intervening period.

Accounting variability

Accounting treatments vary among the local authorities, making it difficult to produce a set of strictly comparable statistics. Data for some variables is not always available, this is where a council has either not provided the breakdown figures in their LTCCP or they have a value of zero.

Due to the way councils present their accounts, certain financial summary categories are more robust than others. Changes in financial reporting standards between 2006 and 2009 have significantly changed aspects of local authority accounting e.g. total comprehensive income now includes changes to asset values through revaluations. This creates an inflated total income figures in comparison to 2006 figures.

The financial items which should be treated with caution are:

• Investment in CCOs & other entities - there is a large variation in the way these investments are reported by councils, therefore the figures presented may be under-reported.
• Monetary assets - as identified in the methodology this category contains a wide variety of items, some unique to a particular council. Therefore it is unlikely that theis category will be consistent amongst councils.
• Other assets - again this item has a wide variety of items included which are very much dependent on the councils accounting practices. This creates little consistency in the component items amongst councils.
• Development Contributions – there is a large variation in the way these contributions are reported by councils, therefore the figures presented may be under-reported.

When analysing the above items additional care should be used, especially when making comparisons between councils. The summary categories will often not be directly comparable due the components for the summary category differing amongst councils.

Disclaimer

The data and observations in these resources are based on the financial information from council’s 2009 final long-term council community plans (LTCCPs). The following points should be noted in relation to the data and analysis presented:

• The Department has interpreted the data from the LTCCPs (all which are prepared differently) against a consistent but high-level framework.
• A number of assumptions have been made on a consistent basis to allow the comparison between councils and the creation of a local government sector set of accounts. Please see methodology (above) for more detail.
• The methodology is the same as applied to the 2009/19 draft LTCCP analysis which was sent to all councils in July 2009.

While all care has been taken in presenting a fair view of what is contained in the LTCCP it is recognised that there may be errors or omissions and is not intended to replace the individual LTCCPs.