Biggest risks for local governments this year revealed
Infrastructure and financial stability are among the leading risks for the local councils for the year ahead, a new report has shown.
The latest risk report for local governments, published by Aon, said financial challenges represented some of the largest challenges for governments across the country for 2018.
Now in its fourth year, the risk report said while financial sustainability has remained one of the top issues for local governments over the years, this year's report saw cyber security pose a larger potential threat.
Infrastructure and financial issues were top two on the list of risks, followed by health and safety, cyber security and reputational issues.
"Health and safety, cyber, reputation and human resources concerns have all leapt higher as [local governments] count the risk and cost of human impact," the report said.
While only local governments were surveyed for the yearly report, Aon's head of local government Paul Crapper there are many takeaways for other government bodies such as the ACT government.
"Many of the risks that you see in local government will have an impact on territory governments," he said.
"Particularly things such as infrastructure as well as health and safety. Assets owned by the territory and funding is an important aspect for any government.
"Some of the big lessons coming out of the report is that you can't underestimate financial sustainability, because at the end of the day, governments have to balance the budget."
Among the other risk factors to make the top 10 were issues surrounding human resources, asset protection, funding, planning decisions and weather events.
Mr Crapper said the rise of in risk factor for cyber security issues represents a growing trend across all levels of government.
"It's a reflection on the fact that we're becoming more aware of the impact of cyber security, or the impact hackers can have in terms of what private information they could obtain," he said.
Among the other findings in the report were 18 per cent of local councils in Australia have not audited workplace health and safety policies in the past three years.
Responses to weather events or natural disasters did not feature high on the list this year, dropping six places in the list of risks.
Mr Crapper sad some of the larger risks, however, was delivering vital pieces of infrastructure.
"One of the big challenges is how do local governments deliver the assets that councillors want out of a budget, but at the same time, protect existing ones in the area," he said.