Toowoomba Regional Council has today introduced a raft of new financial reports as part of its monthly reporting processes.
At Council’s May meeting, Financial Services portfolio spokesperson Councillor, Gary Gardner raised the need to review and renew the financial reporting format.
The Council says additional information and format changes have been made to show operating and capital results in graphic representations, with a focus on making it more user friendly and providing easier viewing for the community.
“It is a new term, so we have the opportunity to do things differently,” Councillor Gardner said.
“We need to establish clear linkages between our financial reporting and council’s overarching long-term strategic operational plans.
“Council’s reporting was extensive, but was more representative of a point of time, rather than providing councillors with the projections and forecasts,” he said.
“We have made targeted improvements to make it easier to decipher the information as well as continue Council’s commitment to transparent financial communication.”
Cr Gardner said he believes the changes will enhance the effectiveness of the reports for councillors, while continuing to provide the essential information needed for decision making.
“Local councils are complex businesses, in some ways they are a collection of a number of disparate businesses, delivering a set of diverse services to a wide group of customers – residents, local business and visitors,” he said.
“All these factors present a unique set of challenges to manage, while keeping our long-term financial sustainability and service delivery performance top of mind.”
He said financial reporting needs to support strategic council decisions about how to best leverage limited capital available for future initiatives.
“Improved financial reporting and management of a council’s physical asset portfolios will be key to ensuring we meet our long-term financial sustainability parameters in the future.”
