I have spent a decent chunk of the last few days responding to the 150 people who made submissions to the Annual Plan. 

I feel it is important that, if people take the time to put in a submission, their Mayor puts in the time to reply to them in person. 

I’m about half-way through this process, so if you are a submitter and you haven’t heard from me, don’t panic, I should have got to you by the end of next week.

There are a number of themes apparent in the submissions. 

Firstly, and most obviously, people are extremely unhappy with the rates increases and no one on council blames them. I won’t repeat previous columns on why we are facing these increases here.

Another theme though is a sense of a lack of transparency that is felt in what council does, which is something that intrigues me.

I often make myself take my mind back to before I became a community board member, to that distant past where the goings-on at council really didn’t mean a great deal to me. 

Looking at it from that perspective is important in this job because it challenges the mindset that comes from being in the middle of something for a long time, a mindset that presumes people know things you know, but that you know only because those things are such a big part of your life. There’s bound to be some posh psychological term for it and if there is, please tell me.

So using that perspective, I understand why people might feel there is a lack of transparency, and even though I don’t believe that is the case, it troubles me nonetheless that people feel that way.

So, what to do about it? How about using the privilege of a weekly Central App column to show people how to open Council’s books, so to speak.

The first place to start getting an understanding of the financials of council is through our Annual Reports. 

These are done, as the name infers, every year and track our progress alongside the expectations we have set ourselves and contain the financial records of how much was spent where and on what in the previous year. 

Now, these reports are big beasts of things that only an accountant could truly love. 

Last year’s one is 197 pages and can be found here.

There is a summary produced that is much more digestible at 39 pages which can be found here.

All our Annual Reports going back to 2005-2006 can be found at Annual Report - Central Otago District Council.

While our Annual Reports look backwards, our Annual and Long-Term Plans look forward, showing not what we have done but what we need to and intend to do looking forward, either one year in the case of Annual Plans or 10 years in the case of Long Term Plans. 

Our Annual Plans back to 2007 can be found at Annual Plan - Central Otago District Council and our last nine Long Term Plans can be found at https://www.codc.govt.nz/publications/plans/ltp.

These plans and reports are all audited every year by Audit New Zealand (at a huge cost) to ensure that they show everything the organisation does and to ensure all is in order.

I encourage you to have a look if you are concerned about what you may have heard about transparency at council or simply want to know more about the organisation that you are, in effect, a shareholder of. 

I’d suggest starting with the summary Annual Report for the 2022-23 year and as always, if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to let me or one of your councillors know.