Dear Therese,
I understand that you are supporting calls by one of your parliamentary colleagues to ban tax hikes by town and parish councils without a referendum.
You are, if the Ipswich Star is to be believed, proposing that any 'excessive' increase should require endorsement at a general meeting, or at a special general meeting, with a secret vote.
Unfortunately, the position of parish councils is rather more complex than you appear to understand, so perhaps some information might be useful.
Firstly, almost as an aside, you should note that Parish Annual Meetings - the ones where we elect a Chair, review our finance policies etc. - must take place in May. The Annual Parish Meeting, which is when we take reports from the Chairman and our District and County Councillors, must take place between 1 March and 30 June, i.e. after the deadline for notifying our precept proposal to Mid Suffolk District Council. So, I'll take it that you want us to hold a special meeting instead.
And yes, we have increased our precept this year by more than 2%. Most of our increase is, however, very much against our will. Both Suffolk County Council and Mid Suffolk District Council have frozen their precepts in part by devolving services, functions and/or costs to us. Mid Suffolk now charge us for emptying dog waste bins, introducing a £10 per bin charge last year, and doubling it this year. They also charge for emptying the village litter bins. Suffolk County Council decided that they couldn't afford to maintain the Local Nature Reserve in the village, so we ended up with it. It is an expensive undertaking for a small parish (our population is about 260), but who else was going to take it on? We need to make provision for that too. We've also taken on responsibility for the new village playground, the object of much community fundraising over the years.
Complicating matters further, the impact of your government's devolution of council tax relief to local authorities, combined with the lateness with which the Department for Communities and Local Government provided guidance to Mid Suffolk District Council meant that our planned percentage increase was trebled after we had set it.
If called upon to hold a referendum by law, we would do so. Admittedly, the cost of such a referendum would represent approximately 20% of our annual precept, and we won't be alone in being in such a situation. Given our responsibility to maintain adequate finances, we would need to find those funds from our rather limited reserves. Alternatively, we could cut back on services, or reduce the hours worked by our Parish Clerk, neither of which is awfully viable - we don't actually provide any services apart from grass cutting and street lighting, and our Clerk only works three hours each week.
There is, of course, another option in such circumstances - put up the precept substantially... Oh, but we'd need to hold another referendum, wouldn't we?
So, Therese, given that you either don't know much about the finances of small parish councils, or don't care to find out, I'd be grateful if you didn't interfere with our finances. We don't get any support from central government, nor do we want any. Our electors know exactly who we are, and have the right and opportunity to vote any, or all of us, out every four years.
And I trust my friends and neighbours to exercise rather greater common sense than you and your colleague have done in this matter.
Yours sincerely,
Cllr. Mark Valladares
Creeting St Peter Parish Council
(writing in a personal capacity)
Councillor, this is poorly written, mainly because you flag up the special meeting but have no objection to make, rendering your comments about practical difficulties irrelevant. Then much of the rest is about the cost of holding a referendum, even though she specifically suggested a parish meeting to avoid such a cost. Moreover, you mention the 2% figure - I don't know what the increase in your precept is, but one parish in Suffolk has increased its rate by 20%. If the arguments (such as you make) for such increases are strong, the precept payer should still have the right to hear them and decide, and you should have no opposition to greater transparency.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous,
ReplyDeleteThe precept payer already has every right to hear the arguments and decide as to their value, as all of our meetings are open to the public and advertised as such, including the one where we set the precept for the year ahead.
But I am yet to meet the parish councillor who wants to increase their precept significantly. The devolution of services from the county and district tiers means that we are the last resort for them, and whilst it allows them to keep their precept down, someone has to pay, and that someone is your parish council.
Our precepts are small, so any additional task has a disproportionate effect. For example, paying to have the dog waste bins emptied adds 1.3% to our precept (less than £5000 per annum), but is a tiny fraction of a percentage of the costs of Mid Suffolk District Council (budget in the millions). And they have to administer the billing, at a cost to you, the council taxpayer.
And my electors see me around - if they don't like the precept increase they can, and will tell me about it. And, every four years, they can replace me, or even stand against me, and I wouldn't mind. After all, I am paid no expenses, my time is given free of charge, and I could spend the time enjoying my cottage rather than worry about how the street lights can be kept on.