Re "$25m offered if councils merge" (Leader, October 22).
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Whilst being judged by IPART as unfit to stand alone, Hurstville Council satisfied the financial criteria overall.
I beg to differ.
Hurstville claimed in its improvement proposal to IPART that "our long-term financial forecast, which has been verified by our external auditors Hill Rogers Spencer Steer (attachment 2) meets or exceeds all seven benchmarks in every one of the next 10 years".
This implies that the auditors supported, even validated the council's long term financial plan (LTFP).
However, the auditors expressed no opinion as to whether the financial model (included in the LTFP) will be achieved and stated that the evidence to support the council's best-estimate assumptions on which the financial model is based is "speculative in nature". It appears that IPART did not actually read the auditor's report and simply took the council's claim at face value.
The IPART report also noted Hurstville circulated a brochure about the ILGRP preferred merger option to residents and around 64 per cent preferred the council to remain independent.
This is not surprising, given the brochure, distributed in March at a cost of $175,000:
- Did not include key information — the state government's actual FFTF criteria — or a merger options analysis (like Kogarah did), but
- Included factual errors eg, showing available working capital higher than it is and mayor Hindi's claim the council met all FFTF criteria when it did not.
At the time — before this fanciful new financial model — the council failed to meet three of the seven criteria.
Anne Wagstaff, Oatley
Our executive has just finished reading the IPART report into local government amalgamations.
Most Sydney councils, including Hurstville, Kogarah and Rockdale, gain a "satisfactory" on the way they run and the future of their present council operations. Yet Premier Mike Baird, that lovely man from the north shore beaches, seems to think they are all wrong because they don't want to amalgamate into large councils.
His idea of large councils being more efficient and cost-effective ignores the real problems for local government, political parties and state government interference.
If the Premier is bullying and bribing council to do his will, it may be time he visits the NSW Governor and go to the people to gain community support.
With recent polls showing 82 per cent of NSW residents are opposed, then he may gain a rude surprise.
Brian Shaw, president,Hurstville Residents Association
