10 Year Financial Plan

What is Council’s Financial Plan?

 The Financial Plan provides a financial view of the next 10 years for Council:

  1. What we will do
  2. How much it may cost
  3. How we will fund it

We want our community to understand how the Financial Plan is put together, the decisions involved and where the money goes to deliver services to the community.

Pressures on our budget are changing all the time, which means we are always making decisions about what is in and out of the budget – we don’t want to spend more than we can afford!

We have an obligation to our future community, and we want to ensure we can respond to future events, opportunities and pressures.

How we use the Financial Plan

You might have heard of the phrase “Grow the Pie”.  We like to think of the Financial Plan in two ways:

  1. How we can grow the pie – Where does the money come from?
  2. How the pie is cut up – Where does the money go?

Below, you can see details on Where does the money come from and Where does the money go.

The Financial Plan is a vital tool for Council. Here’s why:

  • It is a 10-year view of our income and expenses.
  • It contains our proposed rates and borrowings for the next 10 years.

  • It incorporates the projected financial impacts of the Council Plan actions and the Community Vision

  • It seeks to address risks associated with:
  1. our financial viability; and
  2. the management of our current and future liabilities.

We review the 10 year Financial Plan every year, ensuring that we stay on track to be able to deliver the Council Plan actions and achieve our Community Vision.

It’s important to note that the Plan’s accuracy is greatest in the next few years and then becomes less certain as we approach 10 years. That’s why we update our estimates as we go through various stages of planning and procurement.