Commonwealth Financial Assistance payments

General purpose and local roads funding

The Northern Territory Grants Commission is an independent body with the primary role to provide annual funding recommendations for the allocation of Commonwealth financial assistance general purpose and local road funding.

In previous financial years, the general purpose and local road payments were classified as revenue and expenditure in the statement of financial performance. In 2019-20 this transaction was reclassified as a pass-on arrangement as the department is simply a conduit to pass on funds to other entities.

As a result, the grant is no longer recorded in the statement of financial performance, but recognised as a receipt and payment through a clearing account, in accordance with Australian Accounting Standards.

The general purpose payments are distributed on a needs-basis formula developed by the Commission. This takes into account a number of factors such as revenue-raising capacity, expenditure requirements, the size of a council’s footprint and how difficult it is to access communities in the council area.

The local road payments are determined by the Commission applying a weighting to each council by road length and type.

In 2019-20, Commonwealth Financial Assistance for general purpose funding of $8.6 million was provided to 17 councils, and $8.9 million in local roads funding provided to 18 organisations.

Table – Commonwealth Financial Assistance - general purpose and local roads funding