Even a bribe from Eric Pickles wouldn't help me this time...

Last year, I was rather pleased that I had managed to freeze the Parish Council precept by cutting a swathe of utterly superfluous proposed expenditure from the draft budget. Indeed, I probably felt a bit smug about it at the time.

But something was bothering me. Our Parish Clerk produces an exquisitely detailed budget document each year, which we, the Parish councillors, look at and, apart from my enthusiasm to cut out things that I deem unnecessary, accept. I had therefore assumed that the income and expenditure balanced, as it all added up.

And, indeed, it does. However, it gradually dawned on me that I didn't have a grasp of the whole picture, a failure which annoyed me somewhat, as I take a degree of pride in my basic numeracy. So, this year, I produced my very own income and expenditure account, based on the budget figures, stripping out the earmarked funds for elections and the funds inherited from the Community Council intended to finance the playing field.

As a result, my vague unease was crystallised into a rather ugly realisation, that we were actually spending more than we were bringing in. To be honest, I should have spotted it earlier, but you know how it is, everything seemed alright, and I didn't want to be too aggressive as a reasonably new councillor.

Luckily, I'm not alone. Our Parish Clerk has seen the same iceberg, and has proposed some changes that will help address the problem. I've added my own thoughts, and we've filled much of the gap. Unfortunately, inflation and a transfer of waste management costs from the District Council make the numbers more difficult.

Which leaves one last option - increasing the precept. Not a palatable one, but really the only viable one we have. And so, taking a deep breath, I've joined my colleagues in agreeing a 13% increase in the precept for 2012/13, about £5 for a band D household.

It doesn't sound like much, 10p a week, but it's my friends and neighbours who will be paying it, so none of us have done it lightly. Hopefully, though, it will allow us to stabilise our finances in future years.