Tuesday, 29 June 2021, 2:24 pm The Auditor-General’s new report, Insights into local government: 2020, presents the main findings from the 2019/20 audits of New Zealand’s local councils and other local government work. “Providing affordable and sustainable services to communities has always been a challenge for councils, but it is becoming even harder,” says John Ryan. “Well-planned, funded, and well-managed asset renewal programmes are critical to sustainable service delivery. Without this, communities can end up paying more to renew their assets and suffering unexpected disruptions to services because of asset failure.” Previous reports have noted concerns that councils have not been adequately reinvesting in their assets. This trend continued