26/08/2026
As we audit councils' 2025/26 accounts, and prepare to audit their long-term plans next year, here's a helpful summary of how auditors support assurance, transparency, and oversight of local government.
It's a reasonable question to ask. Councils collect billions of dollars in rates every year. Who's checking that the money is being spent properly?
The answer is that New Zealand has a fairly robust system of oversight, most of which operates quietly in the background and doesn't get much attention until something goes wrong.
Every council is legally required to be audited annually. Long-term Plans are also audited to test whether the assumptions being made are reasonable.
The Auditor-General, an independent officer of Parliament, is responsible for that audit function, carried out by their in-house auditors or approved private auditors. They look at whether the financial statements are accurate, whether the council did what it said it would do, and whether the internal controls are adequate.
The results are published. Every council's annual report includes an audit opinion. A clean opinion means the auditors were satisfied. A qualified opinion means something raised concerns. Those reports are public documents that anyone can read.
Beyond the annual audit, the Auditor-General can conduct performance audits - deeper investigations into how well councils are managing a specific area. Members of the public can raise concerns that prompt scrutiny. The Ombudsman handles complaints about council decisions. And councils are subject to the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act, which gives the public the right to request information about how decisions were made.
There's more scrutiny on local government finances than most people realise, and more tools available to the public to demand accountability than most people use.
