Financial information about the Ashburton District Council was released by the Government last week as part of its plan to introduce performance benchmarks for all councils.

The profile includes key financial metrics like forecast rate rises, debt, expenditure and staffing costs.

Mayor Neil Brown said the information in the profile was not new and had been reported to the community already as part of a Long Term Plan, Annual Plan and Annual Reports.

“The Department of Internal Affairs has collected information for our profile using data from Council’s Long Term Plan 2024-34 and from our Annual Plan 2025-26. None of this will be new to our residents.”

In the new benchmarking report, Ashburton has been grouped with other small city or large district councils whose populations are between 30,000 and 100,000.

Mayor Brown said the profile gave an overall impression of a Council solidly delivering its core services.

“It acknowledges that our Council has a AA+ credit rating from Fitch, which is an international credit rating organisation. We’ve held this rating for five years in a row, and that’s evidence of a stable financial position with a strong ability to service debt.

“All councils provide services that are similar, like wastewater and roads, but we all have geographical and social differences to deal with. In Ashburton, the average high capital value household pays about $76 a week in rates or $305 a month, which is about the same as the monthly power bill.

“Those rates give you drinking water, wastewater, roads, rubbish collection, parks, libraries and a whole lot more.

“The DIA grouping actually highlights how different each council is so comparisons can be difficult, however these benchmarking reports are all about transparency and we are up for that.”