Otago

Freshwater planning, farmers, and financial interests

21 November 2023: This note is about one of our recent decisions under the Local Authorities (Members’ Interests) Act 1968. It will be helpful for councillors with financial interests in plans under the Resource Management Act 1991.

Monitoring how water is used for irrigation

May 2018: This is our first of seven audits that will look at how public organisations manage water. For this audit, we looked at how freshwater used for irrigation is tracked and measured. This included looking at how well water meter installation was managed, the quality of data collected from water meters, how the data was used, and whether this was leading to positive changes in the way water is used. We focused on five regional councils and one unitary council from six different regions.

Getting the right information to effectively manage public assets: Lessons from local authorities

December 2017: Elected councillors need relevant and reliable information to make good decisions about managing the assets they govern. As communities and environments change, the challenges that local authorities face and decisions they make are becoming more complex. We looked at how five local authorities approached identifying and gathering the right information about their assets...

Inquiry into property investments by Delta Utility Services Limited at Luggate and Jacks Point

March 2014: Delta lost about $5.9 million on the Luggate investment and has projected a loss of about $2.8 million for Jacks Point. The report identifies that there was too much focus on the likely profits and not enough consideration of risks of the market slowing or an exit strategy if things went wrong. It also suggests that Delta should have got independent advice before investing.

Waste management planning by territorial authorities

April 2007: All territorial authorities must adopt a waste management plan. In this audit, we checked whether all had done so, and whether six were implementing them. Some of the plans were out of date or did not contain all the information we expected...