Municipal audit centre certifies Bocholt city administration "solid city finances"

The North Rhine-Westphalia Municipal Audit Office certifies that Bocholt's city administration has "solid city finances" overall, which could be used to better cope with the consequences of current crises. The authority, which audits the cities in North Rhine-Westphalia, also makes recommendations for improvement.

A six-person audit team from the North Rhine-Westphalia Municipal Audit Office (gpaNRW) took a close look at the areas of finance, information technology (IT), educational assistance, building supervision and traffic areas in Bocholt. The key findings and recommendations for action have now been presented to the Bocholt Audit Committee by gpa project manager Thomas Knuth, gpa auditors Mario Deckers and Sven Alsdorf and the Deputy President of gpaNRW, Simone Kaspar.

"The city of Bocholt has solid city finances. This stable foundation makes it easier to cope with the current crises and the consequences of the Russian war of aggression. What has been achieved should serve as motivation not to let up and to further optimise finances, administrative structures and processes and increase crisis resilience", explained Simone Kaspar, Deputy President of gpaNRW, at the presentation of the audit report.

"In the period under review 2016 - 2020, the city of Bocholt was able to achieve predominantly positive annual results. The reason for this was the good economic situation with booming tax revenues. The only exception was 2017 with a deficit of 1.3 million euros. It is pleasing that the city has a good equity base and a below-average level of debt compared to other municipalities", gpa auditor Mario Deckers analyses the situation of the city's finances without omitting any words of warning for the coming years. In fact, the city administration is planning for negative annual results for the years up to 2025. "In order to make the budget more crisis-proof in times of rising prices, consolidation potential should be identified and realised", recommends Mario Deckers. One positive aspect is that the city has a functioning reporting and financial controlling system in place during the year. This means that countermeasures can be taken quickly in the event of a deterioration in the budget.

Information technology (IT) was also an audit area. "The city of Bocholt has already identified and addressed most of the opportunities for optimisation and need for action in IT itself. The digital transformation therefore has a good basis for the next steps", said gpa auditor Sven Alsdorf, praising the work of the city administration and motivating the actors involved to further develop and expand IT management. The city in Westmünsterland should formalise its strategic IT orientation in an IT strategy, recommends the gpaNRW.

Expenditure on educational assistance accounts for a large proportion of the budgets of many local authorities. In an inter-municipal comparison, the city of Bocholt has a low level of child poverty and a slightly below-average youth unemployment rate.

The youth welfare office is also well organised. Financial controlling is well organised and the process and quality standards are set out in writing. "The youth welfare office achieves an inconspicuous case density and below-average expenditure per case of assistance" with well-established prevention work in conjunction with the favourable framework conditions, Thomas Knuth emphasises the pleasing audit results. For optimisation, gpaNRW recommends the establishment of a specialist controlling system as well as procedural standards and procedures for all processes to be set out in writing.

"The municipal building inspectorate is well organised overall. The city was able to significantly reduce the number of unprocessed building applications in 2020. There are also individual starting points for further improvement", reports Thomas Knuth and focuses on the specific recommendations for action. The state authority based in Herne advises that the potential of the digital construction file should be consistently realised and the number of comments should be reduced in order to optimise work processes.

The maintenance of traffic areas poses major challenges for many local authorities. The city of Bocholt is no exception. "The city administration has a good database. This should be expanded into a complete road database in order to develop a long-term maintenance and investment strategy with targets and key figures. This should be accompanied by a timely review and adjustment of the financial resources used", says gpa project manager Thomas Knuth, in favour of a holistic approach in order to strengthen the municipal assets tied up in traffic areas.

"The city of Bocholt has experienced positive financial years and has solid city finances. It is important to make these financial foundations crisis-proof in these difficult times. With the existing foundation, the current multiple crises can be better cushioned and overcome together. Consider our audit report as a toolbox from which you can make ample use of your own room for manoeuvre", summarises Simone Kaspar, Deputy President of gpaNRW.

Bocholt's mayor Thomas Kerkhoff concludes the audit by gpaNRW: "It is important from time to time to take a competent look at the activities of the city of Bocholt from the outside in order to find out what is going well and where there is room for improvement. The City of Bocholt would like to thank the NRW Municipal Audit Office for the good, trusting cooperation and the knowledge gained from the audit, which helps us to leverage optimisation potential."

About gpaNRW

gpaNRW is part of the state's supervision of local authorities and was founded in 2003. It is based in Herne. By law and municipal regulations, it is responsible for the supra-local auditing of all 396 municipalities, the 30 districts, the Aachen city region, the two regional associations and the Ruhr Regional Association (RVR). Simone Kaspar (Deputy President) has headed the state authority since September 2022. The gpaNRW publishes its audit reports on its website at www.gpa.nrw.de.