The Government's keeping tabs on how much councils are spending and where the money's going.

Yearly performance metrics are out for each council, showing rates rises, revenue, debt levels, expenditure, and whether the budget's balanced.

Monitoring comes as the Government considers a rates cap.

Horowhenua mayor Bernie Wanden says successive years of underfunding and borrowing has contributed to the region's notable debt levels.

"Obviously, there will be nuances and context that will not be able to be read into the figures. I think, give it a bit of time, we'll get used to this and the tables could provide some useful information."

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