Oakham Town Council Accounts Approval Deferred

Oakham Town Council Accounts Approval Deferred

At this evenings meeting Councillors were due to accept and approve the quarterly statement of accounts.

From previous posts you may have noticed I had raised some questions relating to this statement and received a very unsatisfactory reply from the Clerk.

I  also asked where are the reserves of £42,000+ the Clerk claims the council holds.  He had not entered these reserves into the statement "because this would exaggerate the councils spending figure"

So far the council has refused to explain this nonsensical explanation.

They also failed to respond to my request asking if this money was deposited in a account not listed on the
statement of accounts.

At tonights meeting when it came to the time for members to consider accepting the accounts, the Mayor Councillor Alf Dewis read a statement, they kindly provided me with a hard copy:.

"Since the agenda was despatched the Clerk has been in consultation with leading members 
regarding a number of amendments relating to the Summary of Receipts and Payments. The amendments made are purely for clarification,

It is therefore recommended  that the approval of the accounts be deferred until the next meeting of the 
Council when members will be asked to decide whether to approve the Statement of Accounts for the period June 1st 2012 - July 31st 2012

A report detailing the changes will be prepared for members"

The problem with this statement is the dates, does this mean the council is writing of April - May 2012?

Regular readers will know at lot of my many problems started when I was first critical of the Clerks accounts.

These have been described by new Councillors as difficult to comprehend, perhaps a rather polite way of describing a poor standard of work 

When in the past I was critical of the Clerks work he accused me of bullying him. The Judge at the tribunal thankfully ruled against this. I did not want to be tarnished with the same description as the bullies connected to this Council.

I am rather pleased the Town Council now appears to be taking this issue seriously.

The Clerk is clearly numerically challenged, but  not when it comes to calculating his remuneration.
Oh silly me! I nearly forgot in May the Council had to pay HMRC for a large underpayment of Tax and NI.

The current Mayor has pledged to cut the councils administration costs. The Clerk possibly being the most expensive Parish Clerk in the land, would be a good starting  point.

It was also reported by the Clerk earlier in the meeting the Accounts have been sent to the Councils External Auditor.