2018-02-06 Planning & Environment Committee Agenda

PLANNING & ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                              6 FEBRUARY 2018


2.   Clause 5.1 (a) – a requirement to develop a management plan for the Noosa Biosphere
     Reserve in accordance with the management principles set out in Schedule 7 of the
     Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Regulation 2000. Subsequent to
     entering into the Funding agreement with NBRF, we became aware that this requirement
     only applies to Biosphere Reserves that were managed by the Commonwealth e.g. Uluru.
     That legislative requirement does not apply to non-Commonwealth administered
     Biospheres. As such, this requirement is not needed for the Noosa Biosphere Reserve.
3.   Clause 5.1 (b) – Develop an Operational Plan and Budget aligned with the objectives for
     the Company and the Public Trust for each financial year and submit to Council for review
     no later than three months before the beginning of each financial year. Initially, for the
     2016/17 financial year, the Board advised that the same funding requirements would be
     required as the previous year but subsequently advised that they were unlikely to need the
     full operational funding amount of $140,000. The final amount paid for operational funding
     during the 2016/17 financial year was $70,000 (in lieu of the Council budgeted amount of
     $140,000) with the full $250,000 of grant funding also paid in 2016/17.
4.   Clause 5.1 (e) – In conjunction with the Council, develop appropriate key performance
     indicators that best reflect the performance of the NBRF against the objects of the Public
     Trust and submit to Council for review no less than 3 months before the beginning of each
     financial year. After some negotiations, agreement on a range of performance indicators
     was finally reached on 1 May 2017. As this was late in the 2016/17 financial year, the
     Board has continued to use a basic traffic light system which is a useful tool to keep track
     of which projects are on track, need monitoring or are behind. The Annual Report
     acknowledges that they need to further develop their performance indicator approach along
     the lines of the indicators agreed to however, in view of Board changes they have yet to
     implement the changes.
5.   Clause 5.2 (a) – Prepare an Annual Report for each financial year and submit to Council no
     later than 30 November each year. The Annual Report is to include evidence that the
     funding is being successfully applied to the objects of the company and public trust and
     particularly to the delivery of projects funded by the Council contribution. The attached
     report has been provided by NBRF in relation to this requirement for the 2016/17 financial
     year. The Annual Report was not received until 17 January 2018 due to the NBRF Annual
     General Meeting not being due until mid-December. (We have requested NBRF to bring
     forward their AGM in future years).
6.   Clause 5.2 (b) – Prepare a progress report against the utilisation of the funding towards the
     NBRF program and performance against agreed key performance indicators to 31
     December each year (6-month progress report) and submit to Council no later than 31
     January each year. The attached Six Monthly Progress Report indicates that good
     progress is being made with the original grants funded projects and that a new grant round
     has been undertaken with successful recipients of small grants recently announced and
     major grant recipients to be announced shortly. There has been significant improvement in
     providing more regular updates to Councillors through informal briefings. This has been
     highly beneficial and it is proposed that this will continue.
7.   Clause 5.2 (c) – Provide an audited financial report (which identifies the use of the funding
     provided by Council for the NBRF program). The attached Audited financial report was
     submitted to Council on 21 December 2017 after the NBRF Annual General Meeting.

For the 2016/17 financial year Council provided $250,000 from the Environment Levy for delivery
of programs aligned with the principal purposes of the trust as well as the reduced amount of
$70,000 for operational funding. The board had indicated that for a range of reasons they did not
require the forecasted full operational funding amount of $140,000 for the 2016/17 financial year.
The accounting standards for not for profit organisations over $250k require that grant funding
received is only be recognised as income when funds are expended on a project. Until then,
Council funds are recognised in the NBRF balance sheet as an asset (cash) and liability

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