It's 2014/15 Budget and Precept setting time and Bleadon Parish Council have asked their Finance sub-committee to convene an un-scheduled meeting tomorrow, Monday 27th January 2014 at 4pm (in the Youth Club!). Stating; "In light of the subsequent submissions from the Parish Council’s Committee’s for additional funding the Finance & Personnel Committee is being requested to re-examine the originally submitted Budget for 2014/15".
The actual expenditure in 2011/12 was £38,752 (within income received).
The actual expenditure in 2012/13 was £48,290 (over income by £7,397).
The expenditure budget for 2013/14 is £40,065 which hopefully will be within income received by the end of March.
Naturally, we all expect that the proposed expenditure for 2014/15 will be within the total income received but clearly councillor's are now requesting additional funding to be made available for items not yet 'officially' declared.
So what is the additional funding requested to be spent on and how will it be paid? What will be the impact (if any) on our parish reserves? We don't want a precept increase either so should the whole expenditure budget be critically reviewed for essential and statutory activities? E.g. It appears IT & Admin costs are increasing yet communications to the public, e.g. newsletter, clearer informative minutes, open consultations, are ever decreasing!
We sincerely hope that all BPC expenditure, but especially that from reserves, is clearly related back to the 20 year Parish Plan, which originally had input from residents via the 2005 Questionnaire process (produced to gain Quality Council Accreditation), see http://www.bleadon.org.uk/parishplan.html. Any new expenditure or priorities should then be discussed and/or openly communicated in relation to this plan i.e. what is being dropped or becoming a lesser priority to accommodate new proposals instead of requesting more money from residents via precept or drawing on our reserves.
The last BPC Action Plan was last updated and published in 2009! (coincidentally & perhaps only for Quality Council re-accreditation) so hopefully we will see a copy of the latest and current Action Plan published and included as a regular newsletter feature very soon.
FYI, as usual, the Agenda for 27/01/14 meeting date is on http://www.bleadon.org.uk/parishcouncil.html and previous minutes for 7th November 2013 are also shown here http://www.bleadon.org.uk/parishcouncil.html#previous. The latter mentions an unsupported proposal by the Finance Committee Chairman to reduce the precept for 2014/15 to £36,000, the committee resolving instead to keep the precept the same as 2013/14 at £38,000! At least the new chairman seems to be trying.
So, why not go along tomorrow to hear the discussion and find out what our money is going to be spent on in 2014/15? Please note, the meeting is at the Youth Club and NOT at the Coronation Hall.
BOB
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