If you want to understand why rates keep climbing, two reports discussed at the recent Finance and Assurance Committee offer insights.

The first is the independent KPMG Procurement Maturity Review. Procurement sounds technical, but it simply means how Council buys goods and services. Everything from infrastructure contracts to operational services.

The review forms part of Council’s internal assurance work, where independent auditors periodically check whether governance systems are actually operating as intended.

The findings are blunt. And damning. The review identifies weaknesses in procurement processes, governance and oversight. In other words, the systems designed to ensure public money is spent carefully are not operating as they should be.

Procurement maturity underpins financial discipline. If the systems that control purchasing are weak, it becomes far harder to ensure value for money. Competitive tension can erode, costs can escalate, and informal practices can take hold.

The review does not point to widespread misconduct.

What it reveals instead is structural. Essentially, it sets out the architecture of waste.

Not waste caused by deliberate wrongdoing, but waste that emerges when the systems designed to control spending are not strong enough.

The second set of reports considered by the committee dealt with the city’s financial performance and capital programme.

These reports confirm something many of you already sense. The financial environment is tighter. Development contributions are softer than forecast and the city carries significant debt while already-approved-in-the-last-triennium infrastructure programmes continue.

None of this is a surprise.  But the combination of these reports should sharpen the focus.

When revenue conditions tighten and debt exposure is already high, financial discipline becomes more important, not less.

That discipline begins long before rates are set. It begins in the systems that control how contracts are awarded, how projects are scoped, and how spending decisions are scrutinised.

If procurement controls are weak and capital programmes continue without careful pacing, the financial pressure eventually shows up in one place. On your rates bill.

None of this means the city should stop investing in infrastructure. Roads, water networks and essential services must still be maintained and improved.

But it does mean the systems governing those investments must be more disciplined.

Good governance is not about reacting once costs become visible. It is about ensuring the structures that control spending are strong before the money leaves the door.

Strengthening procurement maturity and enforcing financial discipline will not solve every challenge overnight. But they are the foundations of responsible governance.

If we want to ease pressure on ratepayers, we must start by fixing the architecture that governs how public money is spent.