The LTPs are a legal requirement of all councils and outline all plans for the next 10 years, as well as how those plans will be funded. An issue for councils late with the adoption of their plans is, according to a Local Government New Zealand spokesman, having “to charge the previous level of rates for the first quarter, but that they will catch up over later quarters”. Van Aswegen said, in a press release, the MDC is struggling to balance the workload associated with a 2018 audit that recommended “moving away from an ad-hoc decision-making process to a position where we can take a more strategic approach”.