Oakham Town Council Budget 7% Increase 2017 - 2018

Oakham Town Council Budget 7% Increase 2017 - 2018

Tonight Oakham Town Council set its budget for 2017 - 2018

There has been no public consultation.

After the last meeting I posted on my blog and shared on Facebook that the council
was proposing a 3.88% increase.

After those posts our Mayor posted an attacked against me for saying I mislead the public
and 3.88% was only a cup of coffee.

I was subjected to the same attack from Cllr Stan Stubbs at this evenings meeting when
he publicly stated, the public should read the truth in the local paper and not on misleading
blogs.

I can not see how telling people what the percentage increase is how that is misleading the
public. Are these Cllrs saying that if I give the public a percentage figure they are not clever
enough to work put their own increase. Anyway for information the Band D increase is just under £4 a year. Yes it may only be a couple of cups of coffee as calculated and displayed on the
spread sheet it adds up to a lot of cups of coffee or even bottles of prosecco as stated by one
of our staff.

At the meeting we were told that we could discuss the budget headings because we were not
making the final agreement to spend. I agree with this but one would hope the figures
would probably relate to the actual spend in the end, because we are taking the money from
the public and should not take more than we need. And that comment by the Chairman
was a huge improvement as the previous Clerk always incorrectly said if its in the budget it
had been agreed.

We have a heavily reduced wages bill, but that budget remains the same.  Despite hugely reduced costs? one of the headings in which we are taking money we don't need.

Fortunately the Council decided that we will not be demanding any money for cemetery maintenance
after we demanded almost three times what we needed this year.

As I mentioned before we were told this evenings meeting was not the platform to agree the
details of spending but for some reason that did not apply to my requests.

The first being the Citizens advice who had indicated they would like a grant of £7000
an agenda item would need to be produced for a later meeting.

Despite the instructions from the Chairman he gave out information to the meeting
as if an agenda item had been presented and persuaded members to reduce the request to
£2000 which is an improvement on his recent comments which led me to believe he would
not support anything when he questioned why I was supporting the CA? He had approached the
CA and shared information obtained at this evenings meeting. He pointed out the CA are holding
more reserves than they should and said they explain that is money held in case they have to
make staff redundant. If this is true I am not sure they should be holding money for that purpose
if they needed to make people redundant as a charity surely they should just pay the government
set redundancy payouts.
It will be interesting to see how much is awarded when some one actually brings the funding
request to a future council meeting.

My second request for funding for a youth worker was torn apart by Cllr Michael Haley and
Cllr Adam Lowe.

I had originally requested £12,000 to be set aside.

I think it would be fair to say that what was going to be my agenda item was hijacked by
Cllrs Lowe and Haley and I was let down by the Rutland County Councillor I had approached
for assistance for a project that I knew he had some knowledge and interest in.

When I was thinking about a way I can put something positive to council I remembered
Cllr Alan Walters had been very vocal in the media about a lack of provision for a certain
age range of youth. So I was happy to contact him for advice, which I did and he helped me
prepare a report for Oakham Town Council. (something which Cllr Stan Stubbs criticised me publicly at the meeting for doing, I simply wanted it to be correct) Cllr Alan Walters forgot to tell me
he was communicating with Cllr Lowe and Cllr Haley. It was not until this evenings meeting
was I made aware of the extent of communication he had shared without my knowledge.

I was also not aware that Cllr Michael Haley or Cllr Adam Lowe had sent a FOI to Rutland
County Council.

Rutland County Councils response tore apart the report, basically most if all the content
provided to me by Cllr Alan Walters was not true or inaccurate. So at this point I withdrew
my request and expressed my disappointment that communications had not been shared with
me before the meeting. At that point Cllr Michael Haley said we did not have to show you. Maybe not but surely as one of his biggest complaints is that team work is none existent at Oakham
Town Council it might have been a good thing.

I nearly did agree with a proposal from Cllr Vince Howard requesting £500 is set aside
just in case for youth work. But also retracted that support.

Cllr Alan Walters was publicly criticised for not having a business plan. At this stage it
was not needed so I don't know why that was an issue. I would not have brought an incomplete
agenda item to council sadly now it looks if nothing will come to council which is very
disappointing.

I did not vote to accept the 7% increase and was asked by the chairman if I wanted it minuted
my answer was yes.

I gave my reason something which the chairman Cllr Adam Lowe attacked me for in the meeting.

Oakham Town Council gave the office instructions around June 2016 to tender for
contract that had expired. Nothing was done and even this evening the chairman was
seeking reassurance that the tendering process would start this year.

When I attempted to explain that I though it was wrong for the council to guess the
cost of those contracts and in some cases quite a bit more than we have paid this year
I felt the budget should remain the same and it was wrong for us to put figures in the
public domain which showed we were willing to accept increased contract costs.
If I was a company tendering one of the first things I might do is look at the councils
expenditure and budget to see what they pay or what they have budgeted for. In this case
I would see OTC Budget when our website goes live if ever and think I could put in a higher
bid.

So when Cllr Lowe accused me of not wanting to be transparent and open he was mistaken.

I find it astonishing that it is acceptable for the Town Council not to have tendered by now
and then just guess the budget figures. Oddly I seemed to be the only Cllr who thinks its not
correct.

The final council tax demand would have been considerable more (40%) if we had not
used reserves.

I also find it astonishing that when I asked for reserves to be used Cllr Michael Haley
who is part of the finance working group can be heard on the recording say no this can
not happen. Astonishing because the other member of the group Cllr Peter Ind proposed
the same thing and it was then fine.

One of the most frustrating things is no one can actually state how much the council
reserves are.

It is very clear the figure of £240 given at the last meeting was incorrect. Because
the finance working group had not considered the next five month expenditure
and I think the figure stated by Cllr Lowe of around £1000,000 is more realistic.
I am hoping Cllr Haley will be able to provide as with an exact figure at the next meeting.


In conclusion I am pleased Cllr Michael Haley removed the comparison to take away
coffee from the budget document when I pointed out some members of the public
are not happy with this flippant comparison.

I am not happy we have set a budget with an increase, we are not providing any
new services or events and one of our major costs staffing has been drastically reduced
and we are told we are under spending this year so I see no justification for any increase.