Town Councils' FY2022 Financial Statements and FY2022 Town Council Management Report (TCMR) - Governance Report

Nov 30, 2023

Presentation of Town Councils’ FY2022 Financial Statements to Parliament

The Ministry of National Development (MND) has presented the FY2022 audited financial statements of the 17 Town Councils (TCs) to Parliament and the TCs will be publishing them on their websites.

All TCs had unqualified financial statements for FY2022.

For FY2022, all TCs reported poorer financial positions, mainly due to cost pressures from higher water and electricity prices, lift maintenance, and other maintenance works. All TCs have either increased, or announced plans to raise their Service & Conservancy Charges (S&CC) rates in FY2023 and/or FY2024, which is expected to improve their financial positions. The Government will continue to monitor the TCs’ financial positions and assess if further support is required beyond ongoing assistance provided to all TCs, such as substantive operating grants and special funding support.

Results of the FY2022 TCMR Governance Report

The annual TCMR is published in two reports: (a) an operational report on Estate Cleanliness, Estate Maintenance, Lift Performance and S&CC Arrears Management indicators in the mid-year period; and (b) a governance report on Corporate Governance (CG), in the year-end period.

MND had earlier released the FY2022 TCMR Operational Report covering TCs’ results for the four operational indicators (Estate Cleanliness, Estate Maintenance, Lift Performance and S&CC Arrears Management) on 22 June 2023.

As for the governance report, MND has since completed the review of the TCs’ audited financial statements, their auditors’ reports, as well as checks on TCs’ declarations of compliance with the Town Councils Act and Rules. For FY2022, 16 TCs were banded “Green” and Chua Chu Kang TC (CCKTC) was banded “Amber” for its CG indicator.

Four TCs, namely Aljunied-Hougang TC, East Coast TC, Jurong-Clementi TC and Marsiling-Yew Tee TC, each had a low severity observation for one non-compliance with the Town Councils Financial Rules or the Town Councils Act, and had 0.5 points for their CG scoring. These were cases of first-time administrative oversight that have since been rectified. As each of these TCs scored less than 1 point, the TCs were banded “Green” (see Annex for the CG banding table).

CCKTC had two instances of non-compliance with the Town Councils Act, both of which were cases of administrative oversight that have since been rectified. There being more than one instance of the same type of non-compliance, this was considered as a medium severity observation. The TC scored 1 point for its CG scoring, thus receiving an “Amber” band.

Details can be found in the full report.

Enquiries

Members of the public can refer to the TCs’ FY2022 financial statements on the respective TCs’ websites. The FY2022 TCMR Governance Report and TCs’ CG declarations can be found here.

Issued by:    Ministry of National Development

Date:              30 Nov 2023

Annex

TCMR Corporate Governance Banding Table

[1] Points are assigned based on severity of the observations. For instance, an observation which constitutes an offence under the Town Councils Act will be considered high severity while a first-time administrative oversight that has been rectified will be considered low severity.