Ref. Auditors Not What People Think – April 2020

The SGSC resort to claiming that because the Auditors look at their reports that it is satisfactory not
to have transparency with the Council financials. If one looks at issues with Councils where fraud

has occurred it is not the auditors who discover these issues. It is usually from a whistle-blower or

other investigation into the activities. For example, the Central Goldfields Shire which was sacked in

2018 was found to have poor governance and fraud issues. The Audit Committee for that Council

was not properly constituted and had 3 years of reports to the Government queried by VAGO – the

Auditor General’s Office. The government people did nothing about rectifying these issues.

If we look at major company failures over the past years, they all had auditors sign off on the annual

reports. The auditors did nothing to save these companies or the people who had invested in them.

The recent SGSC Audit Committee report says the Council will work with the independent auditors

to define the areas they will check. This means that for example if Council has some dodgy issues

with contracts they can say “let’s check out the Work Cover and OH&S issues in depth”

and hence not really expose the problem areas. A similar situation is happening with the VAGO

Audit that is proposed for later in the year – they will look at Maternal and Child Health and 3 year

old kinder issues in depth as their only check.

Hence for Council to say that the financial affairs are audited is no real excuse or justification for

faith in the Council affairs. That should not be used as an excuse to avoid providing data. Without

openness and transparency in the community engagement, public servants can slip into fraudulent

activities at our expense.

The Government Body – VAGO – has provided a paper on “best practice for public participation in

community engagement in local government”. The SGSC does not get beyond basic (step 1) on a 5

step scale. We do the bare minimum to satisfy the Local Government Act. Mostly our rights under

the Human Rights Charter are ignored. Questions and presentations to Council are considered a

nuisance. Why are we so rude as to question their capabilities to know what we want? Shire

Residents – please request the 5 steps from the VAGO report are implemented

Lindsay Love

Sec SGAG”