Understanding the longer term implications of a Council’s financial decisions and strategies has always been a complicated matter not easily explained to Councillors and the community. Kentish Council, in Tasmania’s north west, through its Consulting Accountant, John Brown, engaged KPMG (Tasmania) to assist with a review of its existing financial strategies and to develop the case for long term financial sustainability.
As part of the financial modelling Council updated its asset condition information to ensure that financial projections reflected requirements to avoid future deterioration of its infrastructure base.
KPMG brought to the task its purpose built Financial Strategy Model. This easily demonstrates the implications of Council decisions on longer term financial sustainability over a five to 20 year horizon. Key variables such as rate increases, expenditure trends and asset renewal requirements can be changed in an interactive way to immediately reveal the implications of financial policy decisions, using a series of simple to understand charts.
Kentish Council General Manager, Dirk Holwerda, believes that the Financial Strategy Model enabled Council to easily demonstrate to the Local Government Board during a recent review process that the Council has sound financial strategies in place for the future. It is an affordable product, even for small Councils, and has become a key tool in the annual budget process of the Council.
For further information, contact Dirk Holwerda, on (03) 6491 2500.
