Findings on Council credit card expenditure welcomed

Published on 21 November 2017

General Manager of the City of Hobart Council, Nick Heath has welcomed the public release of the Auditor General’s report into the use of credit cards by elected members and general managers of Tasmanian Councils.

“Pleasingly, the Auditor General’s report notes that ‘no evidence of serious or systemic misuse of public funds, or fraud was identified’ as part of the audit.”

“The Council has worked hard to increase its level of transparency and probity,” said Mr Heath.

Key findings and observations of the Auditor General’s report in relation to the Hobart City Council included:

• No misuse of public funds
• The General Manager does not have a corporate credit card
• In 2016, a total of 50 transactions across 10 cards issued to Aldermen occurred for a total spend of $1190. The maximum individual transaction value was $80.

“The Council wants to ensure the community is confident their funds are being spent appropriately so in response to the summary of findings issued to the Council earlier this year, we reviewed our policy and have already implemented a number of improvements.

“We acknowledge that there is always room for improvement to any system and in the interests of good governance, we will continue to work with Council’s Risk and Audit Panel and the Aldermen to introduce improvements to our Aldermanic Development and Support Policy which includes the use of credit cards by Aldermen,” said Mr Heath.