Audit NZ has confirmed an unqualified opinion in relation to the Whakatane District Council's 2017/18 financial statements.

Interim Chief Executive David Bewley says the Auditor-General's independent assessment of the Council's financial position, the results of its operations and cash flows, and the funding impact and capital expenditure statements set out in its annual report for the year to June 30 2018 are ‘fairly presented' and comply with accepted accounting practices.

However, challenges resulting from the introduction of new electronic systems monitoring the time taken to respond to and resolve water supply and sewerage overflow call-outs, and the time taken to process building consent applications, have resulted in a qualified audit opinion for seven of the 92 non-financial measures reported.

'Regrettably, new software systems which were introduced to enhance our service provision and reporting accuracy in the Three Waters and building consent areas did not live up to our expectations,” says David.

'As a result, we were not able to guarantee the accuracy of those measures.”

He says a compatibility issue with a new water and wastewater asset management software system meant the reporting data relating to the time take to deal with water reticulation faults and resolve sewerage overflows was unreliable.

A further reporting measure capturing the average time taken to process building consent applications was similarly affected by a software fault, meaning some records were inaccurate.

'Further analysis of the measures affected does not indicate that the quality of the services involved was significantly impacted, but in the absence of reliable information, we have to accept a qualified audit opinion for those aspects of our annual report,” says David.

David says council staff are working with the software providers involved to resolve the reporting issues.