Reminder that Council Annual Reports are due 30 November

As our local government clients are aware, all councils are required to prepare and adopt their annual reports by 30 November.

The annual report must contain specific, legislatively prescribed content. Although the requirements regarding the content of the annual report are largely set out in Schedule 4 of the Local Government Act 1999, there are additional requirements in other sections of that Act, in regulations under that Act, and in other pieces of legislation entirely (for example, the Local Nuisance and Litter Control Act 2016 (SA)).

The most recent legislative change relevant to council annual reports is that annual reports must include a report relating to contraventions by any council members of the Behavioural Standards, or the council’s behavioural support policies (if any). Councils should accordingly take particular care to ensure that annual reports for this year satisfy this requirement, and more generally are updated to reflect the language of the new behavioural management framework.

Further, we remind our readers that council subsidiaries must produce their own annual reports, and must do so even sooner than 30 November so that those annual reports may be incorporated into the annual report prepared by the council or constituent councils which have established the subsidiary.

Norman Waterhouse regularly advises councils and council subsidiaries on all aspects of the governance and accountability framework which applies to those entities. For more specific information and advice, please contact Felice D’Agostino on +61 8 8210 1202 or fdagostino@normans.com.au, Dale Mazzachi on +61 8 8210 1221 or DMazzachi@normans.com.au, or Chris Alexandrides on +61 8 8210 1299 or CAlexandrides@normans.com.au