Fit for the Future

The State Government’s ‘Fit for the Future’ program is a reform program. The aim is to ensure that a Local Government Authority has sufficient ‘scale and capacity’ and is financially sound in order to be ready and able to face the challenges of the future.

The ‘scale and capacity’ criterion requires a Council to be of a sufficient size, adequately resourced and have appropriate systems to deliver services to its community in an efficient and effective manner. The required financial standing of a Council is to be determined by reference to seven benchmarks.

If a Council is considered to have sufficient ‘scale and capacity’ and meet all the financial benchmarks then it will be classified as ‘Fit for the Future’. If one or more of the benchmarks are not achieved by a Council then a strategy must be developed by the Council to ensure all benchmarks are met by 2020.

An independent panel, appointed by the Minister for Local Government, has assessed Inverell as having sufficient ‘scale and capacity’ to continue as a stand alone Council.

However, Council does not meet three (3) of the set benchmarks. A strategy has been developed to ensure the Council meets the standard by 2020. Details of this strategy are shown in Section 3 of the ‘Roadmap‘ (pages 34 – 45).

The key components of this strategy are:

1. $6M will be released from Reserves for improvements on the Road Network and spent over two (2) years, starting 1 July, 2015. This amount is in addition to the $10M provided for normal maintenance in Council’s annual budget.
2. Any capital works (such as the upgrade of the Inverell Pool) will be funded by raising loan funds. Council had these funds in Reserves to undertake the works, however Council is required to carry a level of debt in order to demonstrate intergenerational transfer of benefit/cost.
3. Raise additional rate revenue over a 3 year period by increasing rates by 4.75% in 2017/18, 4.75% in 2018/19 and 4.75% in 2019/20.

At the end of this three (3) year period, the abovementioned series of rate increases will see average increases in rates of:

The additional rate revenue will enable a further increased maintenance effort on our road network.

Please download the Factsheet for some facts that may be of interest to you.