A majority of Councillors voted at the Extraordinary Meeting of 28 January 2025 for Staff to submit an application for the Special Rate Variation to IPART. The significant thing here is that IPART is independent, with its own processes, and it will scrutinise the application and then say yes or no and how much.

IPART must assess Special Variation applications against specific criteria set out by the Office of Local Government (OLG). Councils can only apply to IPART for a Special Variation if the elected councillors pass a resolution to go ahead with the application.

The OLG assessment criteria require councils to:

• demonstrate the need for the additional income
• provide evidence that the community is aware of the need for and extent of a rate rise
• establish that the impact on affected ratepayers is reasonable
• exhibit, approve and adopt relevant planning documents
• explain and quantify the council’s productivity improvements and cost containment strategies.

In addition, the Tribunal will assess any other information it considers relevant, including submissions from ratepayers.

IPART can wholly or partially approve or reject a council’s application. Decisions from the Tribunal will be announced around May 2025. The reasons will be published on the IPART website. The Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) released its 2024 decisions on 9 NSW council applications for special variations to increase their general income by more than the rate peg. Of the 9 Special Variation applications, the Tribunal approved 5, approved a lower increase for 3 and declined one.