New Zealanders can see how local councils spend money collected from rates in a simple online tool, Stats NZ said today.
"Using this tool, you can see what councils spend the most on. For example, in 2019 Auckland Council allocated the biggest share of its rates income to roading," national accounts senior manager Paul Pascoe said.
By using the tool's filters, you can choose any council around the country and the graph shows where the rates go, by specific activity.
"With a few clicks you can see that the biggest shares of both Christchurch City Council's and Wellington's rates money are spent on wastewater management," Mr Pascoe said.
"Using data from local authority financial statistics published by Stats NZ each year, New Zealanders can now see clearly how the rates they pay are being used by local authorities to finance services for their community."
The tool, first released in July last year, has been updated to include the latest available data (year ended June 2019).
Access the tool here: Where do your rates go?
Use Infoshare to view and download time-series data for local authority financial statistics income and expenditure by activity (Annual-Jun). Select subject category 'Government finance' and group 'Local authority financial statistics - LAF'.
Note: Some local authorities recorded total general rates data under council support services activity. Please see Where do your rates go? - data quality for more information.
