Performance, Audit and Risk Committee

Meeting

24 June 2025

 

   CONFIRMED MINUTES

OF THE Performance, Audit and Risk Committee Meeting
HELD IN THE Council Chamber, Third Floor, Office of the Waitaki District Council , 20 Thames Street, Oamaru
ON Tuesday, 24 June 2025 AT 9.00am

 

PRESENT:              Chair Simon Neale, Member Rebecca Ryan, Member Jim Hopkins, Member Tim Blackler

IN ATTENDANCECr Jeremy Holding

                                 Cr Brent Cowles

                                 Alex Parmley (Chief Executive)

                                 Roger Cook (Director, Natural & Built Environment)

                                 Paul Hope (Director, Support Services)

                                 Joanne O’Neill (Director, Strategy, Performance & Design)

                                 Lisa Baillie (Director, Community Engagement and Experience)

                                 Amanda Nicholls (Finance Manager)

                                 Jason Lilley (Livestream Support)

                                 Arlene Goss (Governance Lead/Minutes)

                                

In Attendance for Specific Agenda Items:

Andrew Rodwell, the Chief Executive of Aqus Limited and Stephen Craig-Pearson, the AQUS Commercial Manager, on behalf of North Otago Irrigation Company.

 

This meeting was live-streamed and can be viewed at        https://www.youtube.com/live/glKAO7nYs00?si=UOtPEtc0S1olTsY3

meeting open

The Chair declared the meeting open at 9.00am and welcomed everyone present.

1            Apologies

Resolved  PAR 2025/028

Moved:    Cr Jim Hopkins

Seconded:      Cr Tim Blackler

That the apologies from Mayor Gary Kircher, Cr John McCone and Cr Hana Halalele be accepted.

Carried

 

2            Declarations of Interest

There were no declarations of interest.

 

The next item was moved forward in the agenda to accommodate the guests.

4.4         Update from North Otago Irrigation Company Limited

The chairman welcomed Andrew Rodwell and Stephen Craig-Pearson to the meeting. They were attending as representatives of Aqus rather than NOIC. Aqus has full management responsibility under contract to NOIC, which no longer has any staff.

The background and working arrangements of Aqus and NOIC were explained by Mr Rodwell. The full 20,000 shares have been issued, with one share representing one irrigated hectare. They were not expecting any further share sales. The full allocation of shares would provide WDC with a degree of comfort regarding its investment in NOIC.

Mr Craig-Pearson said the shares were held by a wide spread of farming entities. The company has never written off any money owed by a farmer and has no arrears currently. He went on to explain other reasons why the company was in a good financial position. The full share subscription reduced risk, and the company was building its cash assets.

Council as a lender currently ranked equally with the bank lender ASB. If the worst happened, Council would sit equal to the bank in recovering its money.

The chairman asked about the risks around the consenting process. The two challenges were obtaining a new consent for water take from the Waitaki River and the second was managing the capital replacement programme. The water take consent expires in 2030 but the process to re-apply had already started. Further discussion took place on the consenting process and issues.

How would climate change and its impact on rainfall patterns affect the irrigation company? They have not done any work on the long term impacts. The infrastructure has been proven to perform reliably in dry years and wet years. Farmers were adapting and adopting more efficient technology.

Councillors asked various questions and these were answered by Mr Rodwell. The chairman thanked them for attending and they left the meeting.

Resolved  PAR 2025/029

Moved:       Cr Tim Blackler

Seconded:  Cr Rebecca Ryan

That Performance, Audit and Risk Committee receives and notes the information.

CARRIED

 

3            Confirmation of Previous Meeting Minutes

3.1         Public and Public Excluded minutes of the Performance, Audit and Risk Committee Meeting held on 27 May 2025

Resolved  PAR 2025/030

Moved:       Cr Jim Hopkins

Seconded:  Cr Rebecca Ryan

That the Performance, Audit and Risk Committee confirms the Public minutes of the Performance, Audit and Risk Committee Meeting held on 27 May 2025, including those matters taken in public excluded, as circulated, as a true and correct record of that meeting.

Carried

 

4            Memorandum Reports

4.1         Financial Summary (to 31 May 2025)

The Finance Manager introduced this report and summarised the main points.

Discussion included:

·         The timing of donations towards the Events Centre. Have not heard from the Trust yet. They expect to have funding available by the end of the financial year.

·         The deficit in the financial report is a different figure to the deficit in the CEO’s report to council. This was because the two reports were looking at different time periods. The main difference was due to the grants received towards the Events Centre.

·         The bullet point at the bottom of page 10. How can costs be $1.8m over budget due to timing differences? When budgets were set they used their best guess as to what would be spent in each financial year, but sometimes more or less was spent. The same amount was spent overall, but the timing of the spending was different to what was budgeted.

·         Amount spent for contractors for economic development. Why was this overspent? This includes consultants, legal fees and valuations. The Finance Manager offered to come back to the councillors with more information.

·         In the consultants budget, the most significant increase was due to the district plan review process.

·         In relation to economic development, there was Better Off Funding money not yet received due to projects not going ahead as quickly as planned.

·         A report on staff costs saved by the transformation process is attached to the chief executive’s report in the council agenda.

·         Councillors asked for a breakdown of staff costs allocated in various areas. This would happen at the end of June.

·         Other expenses makes up 13% of the total spend. Councillors would like to drill into this to understand what goes in that budget line. This would also be available at the end of June.

Resolved  PAR 2025/031

Moved:       Cr Tim Blackler

Seconded:  Cr Jim Hopkins

That the Performance, Audit and Risk Committee receives and notes the information.

Carried

 

4.2         Infrastructure Compliance (Health & Hygiene) Reporting

Josh Rendell and Caitlin Brand joined the table and introduced this report, which is a new report for the committee. It showed 11 out of 14 water supplies in the district were non-compliant. There is now a bigger focus on reaching compliance.

Some of the issues in drinking water were sampling related, data related, or due to changes to water supply standards. There were also some issues with waste water.

The chairman said he was concerned at the number of problem areas. He asked about the Oamaru wastewater non-compliance. It would not be compliant by July 1. Staff were investigating options for filtration at the outlet. They were working with ORC on this matter. 

What was the greatest risk to the council? The Oamaru wastewater treatment plant non-compliance might result in a fine if ORC were not happy to extend the deadline further.

There was budget in the Long Term Plan to overhaul the plant in ten years, so there was the need to balance work done now with what will happen when it’s overhauled.

Further discussion took place on other issues raised in the report and Mr Rendell answered questions from the councillors.

Resolved  PAR 2025/032

Moved:       Cr Jim Hopkins

Seconded:  Cr Tim Blackler

That Performance, Audit and Risk Committee receives and notes the information.

Carried

 

4.3         Waitaki District Council Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory report

This report presented a high-level summary of the Waitaki District Council Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory Report (base year 2022-23).  

Victoria van der Spek joined the table and introduced her report, which is the committee’s first report on this matter. It captures the carbon footprint of all of council, including what is contracted to others to do on behalf of council. She noted at the bottom of page 22 there was an error in the bullet point, which contained a wrong dollar amount. Should read $1.4 million, not $23.2 million.

She suggested that council considered the changes it could make to improve council’s carbon footprint.

The chairman noted that 50% of council’s carbon emissions came from the treatment of wastewater. Increasing the awareness of staff on this issue would help.

Discussion took place on council’s responsibility for carbon emissions. Questions from the councillors were answered.

It was noted that Council’s overall carbon balance was positive due to its forestry holdings.

Resolved  PAR 2025/033

Moved:       Cr Jim Hopkins

Seconded:  Cr Rebecca Ryan

That the Performance, Audit and Risk Committee receives and notes the information.

Carried

 

Item 4.4 was considered earlier in the meeting.

 

4.5         Risk Management Update Quarter 2 2025

This report provided an update on risk management activity throughout the organisation for quarter 2, 2025. It focused on the key risks of Council. 

Director Joanne O’Neill said there wasn’t any significant change to the risk profile but there had been a reduction in some risks, which the committee noted as positive.

The chairman believed there was however significant risk in that, despite recruitment efforts, Council had not been successful in appointing a permanent employee to the risk manager position. This meant we were not giving the risk management function the oversight it should be getting and may be missing risk shifts.

The chairman stressed the importance of filling this position as quickly as practical and suggested using short term contractors or borrowing resource from neighbouring councils as an interim measure, as he was concerned that the position remained vacant.

The chairman thanked Ms O’Neill for her work in reducing the particular risk of significant staff harm.

Resolved  PAR 2025/034

Moved:       Cr Jim Hopkins

Seconded:  Cr Rebecca Ryan

That Performance, Audit and Risk Committee receives and notes the information.

Carried

 

The Chair declared the meeting closed at 10.40am.

 

CONFIRMED at the Performance, Audit and Risk Committee Meeting held on Tuesday, 29 July 2025.

 

 

 

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CHAIRPERSON