Council not happy with audit flak

The auditor-general has put the Mackenzie District Council at the back of the queue for its annual plan audit, with delays in preparing its 10-year Long Term Plan cited as one of the reasons.

News of the delay was greeted with dismay by council and staff on Tuesday with corporate services manager Paul Numan saying it will cause serious impacts on council’s operations with a log jam of reporting, auditing and finalising of plans likely to hit in early 2022.

Numan described the situation as ‘‘incredibly challenging’’, saying the late audit will put the council under significant stress.

Mackenzie was the last council in the country to adopt its draft Long Term Plan on October 7 – more than three months after the statutory deadline – with that issue signalled by AuditorGeneral John Ryan as one of the reasons the council will have to wait until 2022 for its annual plan audit.

Ryan’s statement said Covid19 restrictions and the ongoing shortage of auditors across Australasia has created delays, causing ‘‘some smaller audits that we will not now be able to complete by the end of this calendar year’’ to be pushed out to early 2022.

Ryan singled out the two councils (the Mackenzie District Council and the West Coast

Regional Council) who submitted the most delayed LTPs.

‘‘Two councils have been particularly late in completing their long-term plans, which has taken up time that would otherwise have been available to work on their annual audits.

‘‘With acute auditor shortages, we are not able to schedule their annual audits until early 2022.

‘‘This is not something we wanted, nor is it something the affected organisations wanted, but it is now unavoidable.

‘‘The impact on our audits is just one of many aspects of life affected by the need to prevent a widespread outbreak of Covid19,’’ Ryan said.

The Mackenzie council’s annual plan project manager David Codyr said Audit NZ’s decision meant it was not possible for the council to meet the December 31 deadline for adoption of the annual plan.

He said ‘‘nothing from the council side’’ will prevent the draft audit from being ready by the end of October, but ‘‘the one thing we can’t control in this process is Audit [NZ], and that’s come to light’’.

Mayor Graham Smith described the decision as ‘‘very disappointing to hear.’’

The council’s acting chief executive Angela Oosthuizen said she is drafting a letter to send at the request of the mayor, ‘‘expressing our disappointment and noting what the impacts will be going forward’’.