At its General Committee Meeting on October 11 the council recommended to note a report on the draft guidelines from the Director of Corporate Services and provide any feedback or comments to the Director by November 12, for submission to the OLG.

However Councillor Judi Smith recommended Council take a closer look at the draft guidelines and develop an official response following its information meeting on October 18 and voted on at a later council meeting.

Cr Smith said the draft guidelines had raised a number of issues that were probably too complex to be answered in the Committee meeting.

"This (the draft guidelines) is a big departure from previous practice, it's a pretty complex issue and I do have some concerns over it and I do have some questions for the director," she said.

Cr Bruce Miller agreed, saying he had been "appalled" by some of what the draft guidelines proposed.

"I think some of this is really worrying as far as the impact it would have on staff, on councillors, the added costs and all the rest of it, for what benefit - who knows at this stage," he said.

"There's a lot of unanswered questions and I don't think we should sit quietly and just note it and just send it off.

"We'll have something sort of foisted on us that will be very expensive, unworkable, with very little in most cases of benefit."

The draft guidelines indicate councils are to appoint an audit, risk and improvement committee (ARIC) that continuously reviews and provides independent advice to the council on how it is functioning and managing risk.

While Cowra Council already has an ARIC established the proposed changes would increase its scope and power and limit involvement by councillors.

The report to Council indicated the changes could overlap with the role its external auditors play and Cr Peter Wright said it would create a "very big job for an ARIC committee".

"It (ARIC) would have to get into the nitty-gritty of what the external auditor does, it's probably not right to say but I wouldn't mind seeing the qualifications of the people that have written the draft guidelines," he said.

"They're trying to take away the role of of councillors too and I think that the elected councillors should be part of this and have input in it so they understand what is happening themselves.

"As everyone has said it's a very dramatic change."

Cr Wright also said the draft guidelines could make it harder to get members for an ARIC given the added accountability and exposure the increased powers could bring to them.

Cr Bill West said that when he read the draft guidelines a number of "draconian" things had stood out.

"When I first read this I think I threw the toys out of the cot, I threw the sand out of the sandpit and did all those things that you can imagine because I saw some pretty draconian things in this that we've all picked up on in some form or another," he said.

Cr West said the draft guidelines failed to outline what improvements would be made by the increase of powers to ARICs.

"This of course was brought to you by the same mob that brought the JOs and then didn't support them, the same mob that brought 'fit for the future' and then let it die on the vine and gave us forced amalgamations," he said.

"They failed to explain to me in this document at all what they're trying to improve, they want to improve things but they're not really telling us what they want to improve.

He went on to say some of the points raised in the guidelines could be addressed by upskilling councillors and Mayors.

"I look at our colleague Cr Miller who's done a company director's course and chaired significant organisations in Sydney, you look at the Mayor of Hornsby Philip Ruddock who's a former federal minister and you look at the Mayor of Dubbo City Council who's a barrister by trade," he said.

"If there's not sufficient knowledge within some of the Local Government Areas I think it also reflects that OLG would be well advised to actually start to seriously consider upskilling councillors and mayors.

"I think that's something that that they've talked about for quite some time but I would advocate strongly they need to be doing."

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