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SOMERTON PARISH COUNCIL ARCHIVE Part One Part Two At the last election to Somerton Parish Council, there was a vacancy with nobody to fill it. I said I would stand if no one wanted it. Nobody did so here I am on the council. I thought it might be of interest and encourage others to stand if I reported on my experience of what the council actually does (I might argue that being on a local council is something that, like jury duty, everyone should do it at some time). So far there appears to be two main parts to the job, the reading and the meetings. The council meets every two or three months. In between meetings, papers received by the council are circulated to members for information and any necessary action. Usually batches of papers are passed around together, anything between 10 and 20 separate papers each time, with an average of a batch a month. What do the papers cover? Well, if you ever wondered what your rates (sorry, council tax!) is spent on, you should see the papers churned out on your behalf. Anything from volumes of 200 plus pages of policy and plans, to single sheets on fastening on pavements, dog fouling, safety of kids' playgrounds, waste disposal, meetings on this, that and the other. It is amazing that the vast majority of papers are of little or no interest and need only a quick glance. One regular subject is planning applications. The council receives a copy of each application affecting the village and is invited to comment. As those directly affected by a proposal (i.e. the neighbours) should receive a copy of the application for comment, the council's concern covers any impact of the proposal on the village generally. Planning applications have to be commented on within 21 days so sometimes they need to be circulated more urgently so that anything we say can be sent to the Cherwell Planning Committee within the deadline. To avoid sending you to sleep, I'll stop there. But if there is some interest, I'll report in the future on some of the general or individual matters the council deals with. S
Morris | TOP | Part One Part Two For my second article on how the council works, I thought it might be worth saying a bit about the financial side, which usually perks up interest. Our annual council tax is made up of four elements, so much for Oxford County Council (83 per cent of my last bill), for Cherwell District Council (7.7 per cent) and the police (7.7 per cent) and a bit for the Parish Council (1.6 per cent). The Parish Council part is worked out from a lump sum called the precept which the council asks for each year. I am pleased to say that Somerton's precept of £1,500 for the year 2000/2001 was one of only 11 bids which were less than the previous year (in our case, £2,000 for 1999/2000). Of the other Towns and Parish Councils, 26 got the same as in 1999/2000 and 41 got more. Seven Parishes had the ideal bid, for nothing! Oxford took 6.9 per cent more off me this year, Cherwell 4.5 per cent more and the police 4 per cent more. My pension increase, like the OAP's 75p, based on the cost-of-living index, was 1.1 per cent! If I can test your patience with a brief rant, I spent my working life as a Civil Servant and saw a fair amount of how public finances work. In my experience, government departments (and I believe local government is exactly the same) ask each year for as much as they can get. They seldom overspend (because this might attract criticism) but never underspend otherwise they might get less next year. The usual practice is to spend money slowly early in the year in case there are any unexpected late bills, but then spend freely late in the year even if it means buying stuff they don't need. Because they aren't allowed to carry forward any savings, the important thing is to spend every penny. Has any government department or council ever returned money to the taxpayer? In my view, governments, whether national or local, should only take off the taxpayer as little as possible, should be made to justify every penny they spend and should remember that, to quote Danny de Vito, this is Other People's Money and they should use it as little as possible. If only we could introduce a more sensible method than annual estimates and accounting, taxes, whether government or local, could be reduced by tens of billions of pounds, enough to pay for all the schools, hospitals and roads we need. End of rant! Next time, I'll report on how we actually spend your £1,500. S
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