The City of Onkaparinga has announced that a wide range of information will soon be made publicly available, to improve accountability and transparency.
Mayor Erin Thompson said the changes were part of a review into the information that was publicly available regarding the organisations expenditure and supporting procedures.
“Starting in 2019, corporate card transactions, travel expenditure and any approved exceptions to the organisation’s newly established hospitality guidelines, will be reported to the council’s audit committee and made available on the council’s website,” Mayor Thompson said.
During 2018 the organisation conducted an in-depth review of all purchases made on corporate purchase cards and introduced changes that were developed taking into account feedback from staff, the community and the local government sector.
New rules have also been introduced around travel and hospitality expenditure, and these procedures and guidelines will also be available online.
“By publishing this information online we’re demonstrating that we’ve listened to the community and their suggestions, and acted on those suggestions wherever we could.”
CEO Mark Dowd, said the council had also taken steps to significantly reduce the impact of fringe benefits tax across the organisation by reducing their vehicle fleet, and had been working to identify further reductions in operational costs through service reviews.
“Through our service reviews, we’ve also managed to save our ratepayers $3.46M in recurrent operating savings over the past five years, including savings of $1.89M for 2018-19, Mr Dowd said.”
“The next step will be to look at what further information can be published about our expenditure. We are also looking into ways for information about our organisational performance and the benchmarking of our performance can be released” Mr Dowd said.
For more information visit www.onkaparingacity.com
