Deputy mayor Quentin Smith has questioned how well Queenstown Lakes District Council (QLDC) is monitoring its delivery of projects.

During discussion of proposed amendments to QLDC’s capital works programme budgets at last week’s council meeting (October 24), Quentin expressed frustration with not being able to assess the reason for individual project re-forecasts.

Quentin told the Wānaka App, while it’s “normal for any organisation or business to test itself against whether it’s delivering projects on time and on budget”, the council’s current way of re-forecasting timelines and budgets means this information is not made clear.

“You can’t get it wrong if you keep changing the goalposts,” he said.

The capital re-forecast was the first of the 2024/25 financial year, and was undertaken as set out in the 2024-34 Long Term Plan (LTP).

Councillors were asked to approve all the proposed budget changes in accordance with the ‘Capital Works - October 2024 Reforecast‘ report.

During discussion Quentin asked QLDC chief executive Mike Theelen how councillors could distinguish between “normal capex re-forecasts” and those due to the council failing to deliver on time and within costs.

He told the Wānaka App the council’s aim was “really simple”: to deliver projects on time and within budget.

He cited the development of Paetara/Aspiring Central as a project which missed that mark. The estimated cost of the development was around $1M, and the final cost was around $5M.

“That’s one example of a number… If we’re told it will cost $1M it should cost $1M,” he said. 

“There should be incentive and reward that that’s what we’re measuring against… we should have a means to hold the organisation to account in terms of delivering projects on time and on budget - the KPIs [key performance indicators] should reflect that.

“We’re not always going to get it right but we need to be striving to ensure our estimates and times are as accurate as possible, and equally that we don’t want slippage in our budgets,” he said, adding that that leads to more re-estimates and re-prioritisation.

He said parts of council are “getting better at it as time goes by”, and there are successes, including in “quick wins”.

He also acknowledged that the capex re-forecast “is just the mechanism which reflects that change”, and the reason for the re-forecast is “clearly laid out through other processes in council”.

The council capex report noted that submissions during the LTP process, requests from councillors, and “more recent project information” from QLDC staff meant there was some urgent re-prioritisation of projects required. 

Approval of the amended capital works programme budget was approved unanimously.

PHOTO: Wānaka App