Oakham Town Council Plans To Raise Council Tax Bill

Oakham Town Council Plans To Raise Council Tax Bill

As if times are not hard enough for residents.

Oakham Town Council with no plan accept to collect money form residents
and spend as they please is proposing a council tax increase.

In a report  sent to councillors to be considered at next
weeks council meeting the newly formed Finance Working Group
a group which was formed to carry out work formally fudged by the
over paid Clerk.

The report suggests a small increase would be required to meet the
councils budget requirements.

The report goes onto raise a glimmer of hope, only to be quickly scuppered!

The Working group seem to agree with something I have raised many times before.

When setting the budget they should not allocate money to headings and then spend
the rest of the year deciding how they should spend that money.

This confirms my past comments about the Clerk ability to produce a budget was rubbish
and figures and amounts were just made up.

The report goes on to recommend the council should decide in advance what projects are
needed and then set the budget.

then here is when the report scuppers any hope of change at the Council.

Sticking with the Clerks Policy "its our job to collect the tax and spend as we please"

The report concludes. The group recognise that this is not something that will be achievable 
for the 2013 - 2014 

Why? 

is it a case of they can not be bothered to change?

They have 6 months before the end of the financial year it's pathetic. 

You have one Councillor supported by another on this group who can see this
is the correct path for any council to conduct its affairs.

Then you have another bunch who just feel its the way we have always done things.
so why change now? they need booting out.

I cant understand why it is not achievable? if you don't have any plans for the next year,
you don't need to collect  money from  the tax payer.

I am of the view this parish council should only collect money it needs and if future projects are
required then it raises the funds via the tax only when required.

It must stop this collecting and then deciding how to spend, because by doing this it wastes
public money every year, to justify its role.

The Clerk once gave a written report "we don't do much, but what we do is done well"

I believe so often work is created just to keep him in work.

As a unemployed person I would not wish unemployment upon anyone but in this case
The Clerk is taking the public for a ride. He is one of the councils biggest costs.

Oakham Town Council Council Tax Bill 2011

Rutland County Council tax bills are currently dropping through doors. If you live in Oakham you might like to turn to page 42 of the enclosed booklet Living in Rutland.

You will see Oakham Town Councils extravagant expenditure is highlighted.

This year Oakham Town Council will  increase its General Administration costs to £80,700 
a increase of £9711.

It is interesting to see on the next page Uppingham Town Council is run on a total income of £80,020

I guess they don't have to pay their efficient Clerk such a high salary?

Why has Oakham Town Council been able to spiral out of control?

This year it will spend £206,690 of your money.

In these time of hardship and cuts, we see no cuts at Oakham Town Council. All we see is spend, spend, over the next week perfectly good benches will be ripped out of Cutts Close and replaced with new ones just because it will look nice? more will follow later this year!

I clearly remember the clerk telling me its our job to collect the taxes and spend as we please.
They certainly know how to do that.

The only service I can see the Town Council provide is via contractors, litter picking and works in a couple of small parks.

I am told if these contracts were merged with Rutland County Councils the cost to the tax payer would be insignificant.

A member of the public asked me why are they spending £10,000 on baskets of flowers to decorate what is slowly becoming a boarded up high street. At least the Clerk managed to persuade his close associate to drop the price by £7,000 this year! although they lost the watering contract this awarded to another company for £4,000 less. Think of the saving to public if the Clerk had tendered the previous two years. Although I am sure the saving would have been passed back to the tax payer. I am sure it would have been squandered.

I will look on with interest to see how the £11,000 saved this year will be handled.

It is interesting to read Thorpe by Water the home of our MP Alan Duncan does not pay a parish precept.
This is one of 16 parishes in Rutland that don't require a precept.

I am often asked what the Town Council does and often attacked by a few it is supporters. They say these people give their time for the good of the town, for free. Its not a charity and I strongly believe the majority of it members, more so past members have selfish motives.

Of course there has been a lot has changes, no more council dinners at the Whipper Inn paid for by the tax payer.

Planning is pointless because it does not matter what is said by Oakham Town Council (their own web site admits this) your better of putting your own representation direct to Rutland County Council.

www.oakhamtowncouncil.gov.uk/planning


If people want change they can achieve it. take a look at what the residents of Letchworth Garden City did when the administration of their town council went like Oakham Town Council's

www.letchworth-tc.gov.uk

Council Policy, as of 17^th June 2009

“To close down all Council activities as soon as legally and morally possible, so that its dissolution can then be sought”