Council reports on cost of compliance to Government legislation

1 MAY 2007

For immediate release

Council has received a report identifying the cost of compliance to new central Government legislation since 2000 following a resolution by the Finance and Audit committee to identify the real impact of these costs to ratepayers.

The report identifies 60 new pieces of Government legislation enacted since 2000 and summarises the resulting cost to Council though their implementation.

Chair of the Finance and Audit Committee Roger Hennebry says that the report is an important step in increasing public awareness about how rates are spent.

“The cost of complying to Government legislation is significant, yet is an area that many ratepayers have little understanding of. Compliance costs are growing and growing and will be an area of expenditure that will go under particular scrutiny at a national level over the coming months.

“Whilst the report outlines costs incurred for new legislation it also highlights Council’s lost revenue as a result of its inability to generate rates on Crown owned land. We estimate this missed revenue to be valued at $2.1m per year.”

The report summary shows costs under the following headings:

One-off costs $1,605,000
Recurring annual costs $1,301,000
Reoccurring costs (3, 5 or 6 yearly) $346,000

One-off costs for enactment of new legislation include $120,000 for the Control of Prostitution reform Act 2003, $153,000 for the electoral system referendum and $203,000 for the Building Act 2005.

ENDS

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