Oakham Town Council 15% Council Tax Increase causes outrage on social media.

Oakham Town Council 15% Council Tax Increase causes outrage on social media.

The town council does almost nothing for the community its serves. Spends most of
it money attempting to get rid of me.

This is currently led by Cllr Michael Haley the Mayor and bully and supported by the
dishonest Clerk Allison Greaves.

The Mayor has a problem with any one attempting to raise the continuing failures of
this severely dysfunctional pointless bullying council.

Last night the majority of members voted to give away all financial spending controls to
the Clerk and two other members. I say all because this has been set at £5000

We rarely exceed that sum.

The local government act requires full council to approve all expenditure.

The council also agreed the clerk can spend anything within the budgets although budgets
as the council well know do not mean the council has approved the expenditure.

I can understand the Clerk being given delegated powers for some spending but not all.
That is meant to be the job of the members.
We are meant to have robust financial controls to protect public money.

An example of very poor control was when the bandstand railing was damaged the clerk
replaced it almost a year later, the council was not shown quotes which is common, it is
common for the council to only obtain one quote for most large expenditure.
The replacement cost nearly £5000 and the first members found out about that cost was
when details of the payment was presented to council.

Last night the council agreed to let all three allotments until 2015 for the price of one without members seeing the lease. The lease was back dated to 2014 due to the previous clerk failure
this was stated in the meeting. I do not know who drew up the lease and there is no evidence
that legal advice was sort. Oakham Town Council will receive a couple of hundred pounds
a year whilst the group running it will I guess expect the tax payers of Oakham to carry on paying for things they should be paying for as we were told the content of the lease is the same as previous.

Going back to the council tax bills most of Oakham Town Councils income is spent
on administration costs.

Oakham residents now pay more to Oakham Town Council than they do for the essential service the Fire Service Provide it is disgusting.

People ask what can they do.

They can attend their Town Meeting in April and call for a vote of no confidence in the council and start proceedings to disband it. I and some other members of the council would support such action.

Another alternative is people stand for election in May 2019 and take control of their parish council.


Social media comments:

Dr John Park
@DrDisrupTek
@OakhamUK @rutlandcouncil It is an absolute DISGRACE that Oakham town council are getting a budget increase of 15% funded from our council tax, when they completely fail to follow basic accounting principles. Fleecing the people of Rutland.



 Michael Douthwaite
15 hrs · Oakham
Can someone explain what Oakham Town Council actually do and how can they justify a 15.8% rise to council tax?


One of the things that is obvious from reading social media is many people confuse the county and town council and what there roles are,

Rutland County Council provide some essential services at a very high cost to residents.

Oakham Town Council provides no essential services at a very high cost to residents.


Then there is the confusion surrounding Oakham Town Partnership. it is a non democratic body
meant to support local business but is a club or hospice for retired former Town Councillors who think they are a glorified events organisation who only contact Oakham Town Council when they want public money.
They refuse to be open or even have their accounts audited.

Oakham Town Council does not have a rep on the partnership.