20 Oct 2015
Today the NSW Government has advised IPART to release its Final Report on the assessment of council proposals under the Fit for the Future reforms to the NSW Government.
Each of the 139 proposals (received from 144 councils) has been assessed as either ‘fit’ or ‘not fit’ against the Fit for the Future criteria established by the Government last year. The eight Far West councils were not required to submit proposals.
We assessed 52 proposals as being fit for the future, which represents 37% of the proposals received. To be assessed as fit, councils must have demonstrated they have sufficient scale and capacity and are financially sustainable.
All four Merger Proposals we received were assessed as fit. We assessed 87 proposals as not being fit for the future, which represents 63% of the proposals received.
Of the 87 proposals assessed as not fit:
- 60 were assessed as not having sufficient scale and capacity, but did meet the financial criteria
- 18 were assessed as having sufficient scale and capacity, but did not meet the financial criteria, and
- 9 were assessed as not having sufficient scale and capacity and not meeting the financial criteria.