About this report or communique
Report of the Auditor-General No. 6 of 2017-18
Auditor-General’s Report on the Financial Statements of State entities
Volume 3
Local Government Authorities 2016-17
The Report contains the results of our audits of financial reports of entities in the local government sector, comprising the 29 councils, five subsidiaries and seven other local government entities.
Councils were created under the Local Government Act 1993 (LGA) and provided governance, planning, service delivery, community development, asset management and local regulation to their regional areas. In some cases, councils established subsidiary or other entities as required to assist them achieve their objectives. Five subsidiary entities were separately audited in 2016-17.
Other local government entities were single or joint authorities controlled by councils and established under the LGA, Local Government Association of Tasmania and Northern Tasmania Development Corporation Ltd.
All entities had a 30 June year end, except for Southern Waste Strategy Authority which was wound up on 31 May 2017.
The reporting framework for these entities was generally prescribed by enabling legislation or rules. For the Local Government Association of Tasmania, we accepted preparation of a special purpose financial report. All other entities prepared general purpose financial reports.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT ENTITIES COVERED IN THIS REPORT
Councils vary widely in size and location and in the broad range of community services provided. For the purposes of the Report, we grouped the 29 councils into two classifications, urban and rural as follows:
- urban, populations greater than 20 000
- rural, populations up to 20 000 at a density of <30 per square kilometre.
Separate Chapters are included in the full Report for each of the ten urban councils. The remaining 19 rural councils have been included and analysed in a summary Chapter of the full Report.
A guide to using our Reports can be found here.