‘There is something not quite right Mr Mayor’

Councillor voices concern over accuracy in reporting of development application delays.

Andrew Baker speaks at the Daily Examiner meet the council candidates forum at the Maclean Services Club reveals that two of his companies have entered receivership.

WHEN the numbers don't add up, they don't add up, and Councillor Andrew Baker is on a mission to rectify some inaccuracies in Clarence Valley Council's reporting.

The issue has been brewing for some time with Cr Baker questioning how up to date development application reports were when they came to council.

Previously, DA reports were calculated to the first day of the month, which meant by the time they were noted at council meetings the data could be almost a month old.

Cr Baker sought to rectify this by having staff provide reports calculated to the day before meetings, something which occured at yesterday's council meeting for the first time.

"I am concerned about the accuracy of the reporting in this case and I hope that we can go to something better," he said.

The subsequent notice of motion altered the current process to bring it in line with other reports and ensured a new column of 'elapsed days' in the reports were calculated as being from the date DAs were received to the day before an Ordinary Meeting.

He had earlier drawn attention to the current report which contained several errors.

"We see some dates are five days apart but the elapsed days are only two days apart," he said.

"We have some received on June 12 that are 48 days elapsed and one that is received on June 15 that is 48 days elapsed.

"It can't be both. There is something not quite right Mr Mayor and I raise this because I believe a simple calculation field should be enough to make the reporting accurate and that is all I ask for."

Cr Baker noted in his notice of motion that inaccurate or out-of-date information was not conducive to providing confidence in review considerations.

"Councillors as the members of the governing body are entitled to and require accurate and up-to-date information on all aspects of 'performance of the council' to enable each to confidently fulfil that part of their role of 'keeping under review the performance of the council'," he said.

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