Reporting on the State of the Environment

State of the Environment (SoE) reporting has changed. The introduction of the Integrated Planning and Reporting framework brings environmental reporting into corporate planning processes.

In the year of an ordinary election, the Annual Report will include additional information on the State of the Environment relating to the objectives for the environment established by the Community Strategic Plan. This means that a separate State of the Environment report is no longer required. The environment should be addressed as part of a quadruple bottom line annual report.

Councils may choose to continue with the 'state, pressure, response' model and historically environmental topics if they wish. 

There may be value in councils continuing to collect environmental monitoring data if it is considered useful to them; however, the emphasis is now on creating reports that are of value to the community and not just reporting and collecting data because they always have.

For more information on councils current reporting requirements please refer to the Circular produced by the DLG. SoE guidelines are available from the 'Publications' page on the Division's website. The DLG have also produced a checklist for the preparation of SoEs which is available as part of the 'Local Government Reform Program - Promoting Better Practice' resources.