Tuesday 20 October 2009

Town Council Accounting Method

Tenbury Town Council is to discuss (again) next week whether to improve their account reporting.

At the moment is it virtually impossible to identify how much each service and facility is costing the Council Tax payer.

Due to grouping various cost centres and income strands it is not possible to say (for instance) how much the Tennis Courts cost to run, or the Bowling Greens, or even the Pump Rooms.

The Council is there to raise a precept and to provide public facilities, but as they do not know themselves what each facility and service costs to provide, how can they make rational and democratic decisions about where to spend our money, or what to charge the users in hire charges.



4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would be surprised if the income generated by the bowling green and tennis courts was more than 20% of the cost of maintaining them.And is the rumour true that there will be no more boot sales on the burgage when the proposed new look comes in? There's another huge chunk of revenue going if and when that happens. Seems like lots of expense for the ordinary people of Tenbury so that just a few people can play bowls and the like

@WR15 said...

That is my point, no one knows the ratio. Is it 20%, 10% 5% or 50%.

How can the Council make rational decisions when they don't know.

It's the Council job to raise taxes and provide facilities, but at the moment it's all done in the dark.

Yes, if the full provisional plans for the Burgage are implemented then there will be no room for Boot sales. I shouldn't cross them off the calendar just yet. There is a lot of funds that need to be raised and much consultation to be held before the plan has a chance to be developed.

Phil said...

Couldn't the Car Boot Sales move to the Palmers?

@WR15 said...

In theory they could. The pitches will probably need realignment if the proposed multi use building is ever constructed.