‍For many regional councils, governance work already happens under pressure.

‍Small corporate teams juggle finance, compliance, risk, and reporting alongside day-to-day operations. The same people are often responsible for running services and for explaining those activities to councillors, committees, and auditors.

‍Since 1 January 2026, those expectations have become more formal.

‍New regulations in Western Australia have replaced traditional audit committees with Audit, Risk and Improvement Committees, known as ARICs. 

‍ARICs take a broader view of governance, looking beyond finance to include risk, compliance, and improvement.

‍Each committee includes an independent presiding member and deputy. They’re responsible for:

• ‍receiving and reviewing compliance audit reports, 

• assessing financial and legislative compliance, 

• reviewing how risk is being managed, 

• and making recommendations back to council.

‍For regional and remote councils, this shift matters.

‍Budgets are tight, specialist governance resources are limited, and responsibilities are spread across small teams.

‍While councils can share an ARIC to access independent expertise, expectations are still higher. Independent oversight and regular review are now part of everyday council work.

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Connecting compliance, governance, and risk to everyday council work

‍The shift to ARICs is not just about committee structure. It changes what councils are expected to have at their fingertips.

‍To support independent oversight, councils now need information that is accurate, complete, and easy to verify. That applies to financial data, but it also extends to operational activity, compliance checks, and risk management across the organisation.

‍In practice, ARICs are asking simple but demanding questions: 

• Can this information be trusted? 

• Is it current? 

• Can decisions be traced back to source records?

• Are controls applied consistently, or do they vary between teams?

‍Answering these questions is difficult when information sits across disconnected systems, spreadsheets, and shared drives. Manual processes increase the risk of gaps, errors, and delays, especially when reporting needs to be repeated across audit cycles.

‍In practice, these reforms encourage a more systemised way of working.

‍Councils need clear, repeatable processes for compliance reporting and risk controls. They need visibility into performance across departments, not months later, but as issues emerge. 

‍They also need documentation trails that clearly show who approved what, when, and why.

‍This is where modern enterprise systems begin to play a role.

‍Rather than simply replacing manual tasks with digital ones, these systems bring financial, operational, and records information together in a single environment. 

‍Approval paths, compliance checks, and reporting processes are applied as part of normal work, rather than recreated each time an audit or review is required.

‍In this context, platforms such as CouncilFirst help councils show how governance requirements are being met. Information is easier to trace back to source, controls are applied more consistently, and reporting relies less on manual follow-up.

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How CouncilFirst helps regional councils navigate challenges

‍Centralised compliance reporting

‍As noted earlier, compliance reporting is still largely manual.

‍Information is usually spread across:‍ ‍

• finance systems, 

• HR records, 

• procurement tools, 

• asset registers, 

• and shared drives.

‍As a result, when reporting is required, staff must reconcile these sources and fill gaps before anything can be provided.

‍Each step increases the chance of something being missed. But using a single system changes how this work is done.

‍With CouncilFirst, compliance information is linked together, making it easier to see the full picture without chasing records.

‍Because workflows are standardised, much of the supporting evidence is already in place. Approval histories are clear, source data is consistent, and audit returns rely less on manual checking or last-minute follow-up.

‍For ARICs, this makes reviews more straightforward. Historical records and audit trails can be accessed more easily, and questions can be answered with confidence.

‍The practical outcome is less time spent compiling information, fewer gaps in compliance reporting, and faster responses during audit cycles.‍ ‍

Risk management and internal controls

‍ARICs expect risk to be actively managed through everyday operations, not simply documented in policy frameworks. Yet in practice, many councils review risk registers only after issues have emerged.

‍CouncilFirst helps embed risk into day-to-day activity. Risks can be linked directly to functions such as procurement, project delivery, payroll, and financial management, ensuring they reflect how services are actually delivered rather than sitting in isolation.

‍This creates earlier visibility. Budget variances, unusual transactions, or emerging audit concerns can be identified sooner, giving managers and committees time to respond before issues escalate.

‍Clear access rules and separation of responsibilities also reduce the risk of errors and make it easier to show that checks are working.

‍Workflow standardisation across departments

‍It’s true that in councils where processes rely on spreadsheets or informal workarounds, inconsistency is a hidden risk.

‍Different teams may follow different approval paths, apply controls differently, or document decisions in their own way. Over time, this makes it difficult to explain how controls operate consistently across the whole organisation.

‍CouncilFirst helps address this by standardising workflows across key functions:

• Financial approvals, 

• payroll and HR processes, 

• asset management, 

• and project controls.

‍Each follows defined paths with clear roles and responsibilities.

‍And this consistency matters for governance. When auditors or ARICs review council operations, they can see how processes work across departments and where control points sit. It reduces uncertainty and lowers the risk of non-compliance caused by informal or inconsistent practices.

‍Records and document management

‍Retrieving supporting documentation is one of the most common pain points during audits and compliance checks, especially for rural councils with records spread across systems or older filing methods.

‍CouncilFirst solves this problem by enabling secure, searchable records management that links documents directly to transactions and activities. Invoices, contracts, HR files, and policy documents are stored against relevant records, rather than being filed separately.

‍This approach supports information retention requirements and reduces the risk of lost or incomplete records. When documentation is needed for audit and compliance requests, it can be located quickly, without the back-and-forth that often slows reviews.

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What this looks like in practice

‍A small regional council in Western Australia previously relied on paper files, spreadsheets, and disconnected systems to manage finance, records, and approvals. 

‍When information was needed for audits or committee review, staff had to search across multiple sources, reconcile different versions, and rely on individual knowledge to explain how decisions had been made.

‍This made it difficult to provide clear documentation trails. Supporting evidence was often gathered after the fact, processes varied between teams, and the effort required to respond to governance requests increased whenever staff were away or workloads were high.

‍After moving to a single, end-to-end ERP with CouncilFirst, that situation changed

• Documentation is now captured as part of everyday work, rather than assembled later, 

• Financial records, approvals, and supporting documents are linked together, making it easier to trace decisions back to source without manual follow-up,

• For ARIC members, reviews are supported by clearer, more complete records that can be accessed with minimal effort.

‍Shared and standardised processes have also reduced duplication. Teams now follow the same approval paths and record-keeping practices, improving consistency and making governance easier to apply across the organisation. 

‍This shared approach supports collaboration and helps committees focus on oversight and improvement, rather than resolving gaps in information.

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Final thoughts

The introduction of Audit, Risk and Improvement Committees signals a clear shift in what good governance now looks like in local government. 

‍For regional councils, this shift is not just about compliance. It’s about being able to clearly and consistently show how decisions are made and how risks are managed, even with small teams and limited resources.

‍In this context, CouncilFirst is not just a fancy add-on, but rather an essential tool. It helps councils apply governance requirements through everyday work, rather than relying on manual effort or individual knowledge.

‍Take the next step

For councils preparing for ARICs, now is the right time to look closely at how systems support governance in practice. Explore CouncilFirst through a short demo to see what this could look like in your environment.

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