Independent Review

Independent review of City of Newcastle's processes, procedures and performance

An independent review of City of Newcastle's processes, procedures and performance was conducted by Davidson Business Advisory with community consultation taking place in January 2025.

FAQs

Davidson Business Advisory has not yet presented the final invoice for the Independent Review, but City of Newcastle can confirm the request for quotation was approximately $95,000.
Community members were invited to have their say on the terms of reference and make submissions to the Independent Review of City of Newcastle's processes, procedures and performance. The community consultation ran between 13 - 30 January 2025.
The opportunity for the community to have their say on the Independent Review was promoted with paid advertising in the Newcastle Herald, promotion on City of Newcastle's website, posts to City of Newcastle social media accounts and through media articles.

Davidson’s lead reviewers Colin Jensen and Justin Haney presented a summary of the report findings at a Public Briefing on 8 May 2025. 

The full report was published 22 May 2025 on CN’s website as part of the business papers for the Ordinary Council Meeting on 27 May when it will be tabled for endorsement by Councillors along with a recommendation that City of Newcastle's Audit Risk and Improvement Committee (ARIC) oversee implementation of the findings.

The Independent Review originally covered five themes: 

  1. General Governance - assessing the adequacy of City of Newcastle's general governance processes.
  2. Financial Governance - assessing the adequacy of City of Newcastle's financial governance processes.
  3. Compliance - assessing City of Newcastle's compliance against key legislative requirements.
  4. Engagement - assessing City of Newcastle's processes to engage the community.
  5. Major Projects - assessing City of Newcastle's governance of major projects. 

After the community consultation in January, Davidson Business Advisory determined to update the list to include an additional theme:

6. ​​​​​‘Organisational Culture’.

Davidson Business Advisory have worked with more than 100 local governments across Australia and are very experienced in undertaking governance and performance reviews.  

The review was led by Colin Jensen, who until recently, spent 14 years as the CEO of the largest local government in Australia, the City of Brisbane. He has extensive experience in navigating complex, highly regulated environments.