Long-term plan (LTP) publications

A list of our content (including reports, articles, blog posts, and published letters) about councils' long-term plans (also called 10-year plans).
Local government planning and reporting on performance

25 January 2024: This guidance is designed to help councils provide appropriate and meaningful performance information in their accountability documents, so that communities and ratepayers better understand what councils are doing for them in the short and longer terms.

Consulting matters: Observations on the 2021-31 consultation documents

December 2021: Councils need to provide their communities with reliable and clear information about the matters proposed for inclusion in their long-term plan and the costs of these so that their community can engage with and provide feedback on this. This report provides our observations on councils' 2021-31 long-term plan consultation documents.

Long-term plan bulletins

April 2021: To assist councils with preparing the 2021-31 long-term plans (LTPs), we have produced bulletins that give guidance on financial and infrastructure strategies, good asset management, the assumptions underpinning the LTPs, and Covid-19 assumptions.

Our 2018 work about local government

May 2019: This report presents the main findings from our audits of councils' long-term plans (LTPs), the results of our annual audits, and other work in local government during 2017/18.

Long-term plans: Our audits of councils’ consultation documents

August 2018: In 2018, councils were required – for the second time since the Local Government Act 2002 was amended in 2014 – to produce consultation documents for their long-term plans. This report is based on our audits of the 2018-28 consultation documents. It is a mix of reflection, commentary, and good-practice guidance. We hope that this combination provides a useful resource for the next time councils prepare and consult on their planning documents.

Matters arising from the 2015-25 local authority long-term plans

December 2015: This report sets out the main findings and observations from our audits of local authorities’ 2015-25 long-term plans (LTPs). It follows on from our report Consulting the community about local authorities’ 10-year plans, which included our observations from our audits of local authorities’ consultation documents.

Consulting the community about local authorities' 10-year plans

August 2015: Overall, local authorities have responded well to the new requirements in the 2014 amendments to the Local Government Act 2002. However, the consultation documents we audited varied in quality, as did the infrastructure strategies. But they have provided a good base for local authorities to improve on.