Financial Management & Budgeting

The provision of waste services and facilities involves long-term capital investments and significant operational costs.  Therefore detailed annual budgeting and effective financial management is critical to the financial sustainability of facilities and services. Some of the key problems we encounter with the financial management of waste services and facilities include:

• Other revenue subsidising the delivery of waste services as direct revenue is insufficient;

• Gate fees at waste facilities not accounting for 'Whole of Life' costs, such as landfill closure and rehabilitation;

• Lack of sufficient capital reserves for site closure and management, and the development of new facilities;

• Fees structures that encourage landfilling over recycling;

• Fees and charges that result in the cross-subsidisation between different stakeholders (i.e. domestic customers subsidising commercial waste disposal)

• Inefficient service delivery models that increase cost for Councils.

ASK has experience in assisting customers and particularly local governments improve the financial management of waste services by:

• Undertaking Whole of Life Costings that consider all phases of a facility's life-cycle;

• Undertaking reviews of gate fees and waste charges for Annual Budgets;

• Completing 10 year cashflow projections to identify any future shortfall;

• Undertaking Economic Reviews of waste service provision (disposal, collection, recycling, litter cleaning etc.); and

• Making recommendations to improve the efficiency of service delivery.