Councils
The Invercargill City Council feels blindsided by Audit New Zealand in its decision to delay the audit report until after the December 31 deadline, and the way it has been communicated.
The council’s Risk and Assurance Committee met this morning and agreed Audit NZ’s planning was inadequate, and representatives plan to meet with the director in the New Year with its concerns.
Audit New Zealand director Derek Ollsson wrote to the council last week stating the delay was caused by what it considered a high volume of errors in the consolidation process.
Finance and assurance group manager Michael Day responded to Ollsson in writing, expressing disappointment about his feedback and the audit process.
He told the meeting today there had been a huge change in the way Audit NZ communicated to council, using a technical portal rather than talking to staff directly.
Mayor Nobby Clark was understood to be the only person the director had one-on-one with, and he said he no longer trusted Ollsson.
“Why are we meeting with Ollssen? I don’t trust the guy…and I have zero tolerance about this going forward,” he told the meeting.
Council financial services manager Patricia Christie told the meeting auditors were no longer just looking at numbers “but every word in a report document,” and comparing its performance against the laws of service.
“They are focused on ensuring there is credibility within the public sector.”
A total of 13 auditors have been “rolling in and rolling out” at three weeks at a time, with an initial 121 initial information requests, followed up now by a total of 248.
Independent commitee member Ross Jackson said they put in a process after the 2021 audit process, “to clearly spell out our expectations moving forward.”
This included stepping outside their governance roles to meet monthly and discuss whether there was adequate resources on both sides, and he said there were no major issues identified.
But he said it was clear the planning by Audit NZ was inadequate and he understood up to 20 local authorities’ audits had also been pushed out.
Cr Tom Campbell said he was shocked to read a comment by Ollssen back in 2021 that councils were the end of the queue, focusing on commercials followed by trusts and subsidiaries, and then they worked their way down the country through all of the councils.
“They simply do not have the resources to do the work,” he said.
The commitee agreed that both Robertson and Jackson would meet with the Audit NZ director to outline their concerns and report back to the council by March 2023.
“In fairness to Derek (Ollssen), he has fired his shots…but we need to sit down with him and thrash it out,” Robertson said.