Wellington City Council Chief Executive Barbara McKerrow says it is not true that consideration of the Council’s Long-Term Plan has been delayed till next week due to Audit NZ concerns about data from Wellington Water, as reported by several media outlets today.

The audit opinion is not delayed because of missing data from Wellington Water (WWL). In fact the delay has been caused by the complexity of Wellington City Council’s 2021-31 Long-Term Plan.

“Audit NZ told us earlier this week that it could not complete its work in time for today’s Council meeting so we have agreed to an adjournment of the LTP consideration and vote to next Tuesday 6 April.”

Ms McKerrow says Wellington City’s LTP is dealing with a number of complex issues, across multiple areas, that potentially involve hundreds of millions of dollars of investment. This year the community is being asked to look at various options for spending on areas like roading, public transport, water infrastructure, treatment of sewage sludge and the rebuild of the Central Library.

“The fact we have introduced options means our LTP requires considerably more audit attention than plans presented by other councils, or our own previous LTPs.

“It is wrong to point the finger at Wellington Water for the audit delay. Our advice from the Audit NZ staff is that is that WWL have been highly responsive and helpful in their engagements throughout the audit.”

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