Town Councils’ FY2016 Financial Statements and the FY2016 Town Council Management Report

Nov 20, 2017

Presentation of Town Councils’ FY2016 Financial Statements to Parliament

The Ministry of National Development (MND) has presented the FY2016 audited financial statements of all Town Councils (TCs) to Parliament, and the TCs will be making them available on their websites.

All TCs had unqualified financial statements for FY2016, except for Aljunied-Hougang Town Council (AHTC) whose financial statements were qualified by the TC’s external auditor. The auditor had issued disclaimers as it was unable to ascertain the TC’s opening balances, payables and accrued expenses, or verify staff costs. This is the 6th consecutive year that AHTC has received qualified financial statements from its external auditor.

Results of the FY2016 Town Council Management Report

MND has also released the FY2016 Town Council Management Report (TCMR), covering the period April 2016 to March 2017. This is the first TCMR for the TCs formed after the 2015 General Election. The TCs were assessed under five indicators, using three colour bands. Assessment was based on measurable objective criteria submitted by the TCs and their auditors.

The results of the FY2016 TCMR are comparable to that of the previous years.  They are summarised below, and more details can be found at Annex A and Annex B.

Observations

The broad observations for the indicators are as follows:

1. Estate Cleanliness. All TCs were banded “Green” as they had less than 4 counts of cleanliness observations per block on average.
2. Estate Maintenance. 4 TCs were banded “Green” and 12 TCs were banded “Amber”. TCs which had less than 4 counts of maintenance observations per block on average were banded “Green”, while TCs which had 4 to less than 8 counts of maintenance observations per block on average were banded “Amber”.
3. Lift Performance. All TCs were banded “Green” as there were fewer than 2 breakdowns every month for every 10 lifts managed by the TCs, and the lifts' ARD failure rate was zero.
4. S&CC Arrears Management. AHTC was banded “Amber” for FY2016. The former Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East TC’s score for the FY2015 TCMR was reflected as “Pending” last year, pending the outcome of KPMG’s review [2]. Based on the revised FY2015 monthly S&CC arrears figures submitted by the TC to MND subsequently, the TC was banded “Red” in the FY2015 TCMR.
5. Corporate Governance. AHTC was banded “Red” due to three non-compliances with the TCFR. The non-compliances were: (i) late quarterly transfer to the sinking fund, (ii) waiver of quotation that was not in accordance with requirements under the TCFR, and (iii) fixed assets count report not certified by the TC in accordance with the requirements under the TCFR. Ang Mo Kio TC was banded “Amber” as the TC had not sought approval from the correct approving authority for the waiver of quotations as required under the TCFR.

Enquiries and Feedback

Members of the public can refer to the TCs’ FY2016 financial statements that will be uploaded on the TCs’ websites, and learn more about the TCMR at www.towncouncils.sg. The current set of TCMR indicators and methodology have been in place since FY2012.  MND will be reviewing them to see how they can be further improved.  We will be engaging views from stakeholders in the course of this review, and welcome all feedback and inputs.