There is also the Principal Authority Monitoring Officer.
The job amongst other things is

maintaining
the register of members’ interests and in practice advising members
on conduct and conflicts of interest. For Monitoring Officers of
district and unitary councils, this responsibility extends to parish
councils within their area.

But the Local Government Act 2000 reduced the post's significance and it's not much of a watchdog anymore. He no longer has power to report on maladministration or breaches of statutory codes.

edited to add: there's been more legislation since that time and the MO's powers have been added to again, but not significantly in respect of parishes.

That's the current position, yes. It's a toothless tiger at parish level.

At the Wivenhoe Town Council meeting held on Monday 21st January 2013 the 2013/14 precept was mentioned briefly. However, lengthy discussions prior to this had taken place at the WTC Finance and Administration Committee where budgets for 2013 -14 were discussed and a precept was eventually voted upon and agreed unanimously.

The headline figure to come out of that meeting was a .37p/week increase on the precept for this coming year, which represents a 32.34% increase on the previous year.
To put that in context see this previous posting on the yearly increases over recent times:
http://www.wivenhoeforum.co.uk/discussion/comment/12812#Comment_12812

This precept increase is subject to final statements coming from Colchester Borough Council due on February 18th, but the expectation is that the WTC precept (our part of the Council Tax) will be set at a 32.34% increase for this coming year.

The Mayor announced that a newsletter explaining about this precept increase will be sent out to all Wivenhoe households in the near future.

The Chair of the Finance and Administration Committee, Cllr Neil Lodge, explained after the meeting ended that the committee doesn't meet in public, and so the full range of debate about the precept could not be heard. He explained that such a rule is contained  in WTC's Standing Orders*. Some surprise was expressed about this from members of the public at the meeting. However, Cllr Lodge did pass me the minutes of the Finance and Administration Committee held on the 9th January 2013, and he did give me permission to post them up here (click on attachments below).  The minutes fill in some of the details about the decisions that had to be made and how the final figure was achieved and thanks are due to Cllr Lodge for allowing the forum access to these.

*The rule that was invoked to exclude the public from the deliberations was actually the Public Bodies Admission to Meetings Act 1960 - Section 1 (2) as minuted in the document attached.
Here is a link to the relevant passage of the act.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Eliz2/8-9/67/section/1

WTC seem to be the whipping body here. Due to CBC and there reduction of the grant to Wivenhoe being reduced to £500 from £32k they had to organise an income locally to maintain current service levels.
What options did they have?
A difficult decision but one that had to be decided upon.

On exclusion from finance meetings, it would often be deemed necessary because personal salaries (e.g. of clerk and groundsmen) would be discussed.

Though I guess in theory (and at a district level, not necessarily town/parish) the rest could be discussed in public with that part in private?

A re-think from Colchester Borough Council on this coming year's council tax as reported in today's Gazette:

http://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/10177718.Council_tax_set_for_freeze_after_administration_re_think/

With this news of Colchester Borough Council  doing a U-turn and agreeing to a council tax freeze after all, it is worth looking at UNISON East's view of such freezes. This was posted before on this thread but because of last night's decision by CBC here it is again:
http://www.unisoneastern.org.uk/news/council-tax-freeze-will-create-budget-black-hole-warns-unison

Plus a tweet from Essex County Council last night:
"Our cabinet has today recommended budget plans for 2013/14 that would
see ECC's share of the council tax frozen for third successive year"
According to UNISON East's earlier estimates a freeze would mean for Essex County Council a shortfall of £8.724m in the coming year.

Whether any of this will have an affect on the provisional precept agreed by WTC is unclear - but Marika's posting and attachment above warns of possible consequences for parish councils.
http://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/10177100.Wivenhoe_residents_face_council_tax_hike/?ref=mr

Contrasting headlines from today's Gazette:

If I have understood previous contributions to this thread, Wivenhoe Town Council's Finance and Administration Committee met on 9th January, 2013 to discuss the Council Tax precept that the Council aimed to levy in the 2013-2014 financial year. The public was excluded from this meeting under the provisions of the 1960 Act governing admissions to meetings. This Committee's recommendations were endorsed at the meeting of the full Town Council last Monday evening.

The critical question is whether this meeting of the Finance and Administration Committee was properly summoned. Schedule 12 Section 10 (2) of the Local Government Act 1972 requires that Parish Councils shall give at least three days notice of such meetings to the public and of the business to be transacted at such a meeting. Notice to Councillors alone of such a meeting is not enough. To the best of my knowledge, no one contributing to this thread knew of this meeting of the Finance and Administration Committee or saw any notice of its summoning or of the business to be transacted there.

The facts therefore need to be established. Was notice of this meeting given to the public? If so, how, where and when? If no such notice was published, the Committee's proceedings, whether in public or private, were invalid and the decisions it made and that the Town Council ratified last Monday were and are unsustainable, I fear.

Having had a look at WTC's own Standing Orders, they state that committee meetings should be notified to, and open to the public unless a resolution is passed that they shall not be- for reasons that need to be minuted. As far as I know nobody has asked whether such a resolution was passed in the finance committee.

ChristopherT, subject to the absence of any resolution, you are correct in your observations up to the point where you say that the meeting and everything that flowed from it is invalid because of this suspected procedural impropriety.

Curiously, even if there was a procedural flaw the decision remains valid unless and until it were annulled or successfully challenged by way of judicial review. I don't know if a mechanism exists whereby the Council can annul its decisions.

Now, judicial review is prohibitively expensive and the general rule is that the loser pays the costs of a case.
You wouldn't really want the Council spending rate payers' money on that, would you? Insurance might or might not pick up the tab...

In any event: what would be the good of any of this, if you consider that the upshot of a successful challenge would probably be: a (this time procedurally correct) re-run of the same thing with probably, given the circumstances, the same outcome?

Pragmatism is not a dirty word. Let's just say we expect proper procedure to be followed in future.

Edited: to delete - posted in error on wrong thread.

CBC has added the Precept and Council Tax Levels Report [PDF] to the previously published Full Council agenda for 20th February.

I don't know for sure - but could it be something to do with changes to population size (i.e. 25% increase in total amount collected, but per household share it is 32%)?

Here's the national picture on the impact of decreasing precepts:

"Financial woes are cascading down to the parish and town councils who, only a month back, communities secretary Eric Pickles lauded as localism's "magic wand".

Take the parishes: one in Cambridgeshire reports that as a result of a reduced council tax base its precept (local tax) will reduce by £19,524. This is the result of central government "localising council tax" – it strikes at the heart of local service funding and there is nothing the parishes can do about it."

Just received the newsletter 'Council Tax Facts'. A bit late isn't it. This rather smacks of the banking industry with CBC as the baddies and us poor council tax payers having to make up the shortfall. I hereby register my objection to this enforced contribution to the Wivenhoe precept. If you'd asked me nicely and beforehand I might have said 'yes' but things like this should not just be imposed on residents. I'd also like to see how the figure of 37p per week if you are in in band D has been worked out. I'm only in band B so it should in theory be less?

Thanks Roger. Difficult to comprehend though. It would be easier if it was laid out as a projected income and expenditure sheet with expected shortfall etc. Plus what steps have been taken to show how expenditure could be reduced under different heads? How does it compare with the previous year? What is going to happen in the future? Are Wivenhoe residents going to be asked to pay even more. Maybe residents should have a say on how money should be spent? Could money be raised in other ways e g a Wivenhoe lottery perhaps? Could the Mayoral Regalia and such unnecessary fripperies be dispensed with. Those heavy chains look ridiculous these days and I am sure that a nice neat badge would suffice. Also do we really still need to have a Mayor's Charity Ball? i know the argument is that it raises funds but to me it smacks of nineteenth century benevolent philanthropy and should have no place in today's society. I'd like to see less events requiring posh frocks? I'm sure these remarks will be unpopular but we are all having to pare back.

Cllr lodge like spending our money doesn't he.

WTC have really tarnished their reputation with the lack of informing residents (most formites said they never received the WTC letter), he handling of the health centre and other goings on.


queenie I fully agree.

Fascinating link to isitfair Roger. Astounding that there is no legal cap on parish precepts. I don't mind making a contribution to a specific cause e.g. a new health centre in the form of a (small!) pledge but I am definitely not in favour of having an increased parish precept forced upon me when you have no real guarantee of what the money is being spent on. I want proper facts and figures and to be included in any decision-making process.

Also these back door increases affect pensioners unfairly particularly when both CBC and ECC have had a zero increase in their bit of the council tax.

I've a feeling that somewhere somebody should be creating an uproar about the withdrawal of funds by CBC. Hasn't anyone tried to fight this? Is it impossible?

Wivenhoe and other parishes get a raw deal compared to the unparished parts of Colchester. Looking at the services provided listed in the Council Tax Facts shee,t residents of central Colchester do not have to pay extra for maintenance of playing fields etc.  There is a further way in which we are badly served.  The Council Offices which were presumably owned by Wivenhoe Urban District are now owned by Colchester Borough who charge Wivenhoe to use them (fairly nominal, I believe). The rent on the part used by the Post Office however goes to the Borough and not Wivenhoe Parish. It is odd that the effect of local government reorganisation has meant that Wivenhoe lost ownership of its Council Offices but Elmstead retained ownership of the land opposite Millfields.  Colchester Borough also pockets the monies paid for mooring on the Colne though this perk was a reward for Colchester helping to rebuild Dover Castle.

 I am not sure what the benefits of being a Parish are.  Under the Localism Act all that is needed to draw up a Neighbourhood Plan is a group of 21 residents, similarly for nominating assets of community value; no TownCouncil is needed.   

During another search for the January minutes (yeah, I know - get a life...) I came across this message on the Wivenhoe Encyclopedia, posted 7 March 2013.
If the original Wivenhoe.gov.uk is to be allocated to the town council I suspect there's a replacement website in the offing...

Marika, that's a duff link.

As there is a bit of thread drift here I have started a new thread on the topic of Local Government Transparency.

Unitary local authorities were floated way back at the start of this thread. They seem to be making a comeback under Localism.

Parish and Town Council Precepts (Referendums) Bill 2012-13

On 26th April Kris Hopkins, Conservative MP for Keighley, West Yorkshire, is having a second reading of his Private Members Bill that he has introduced under the Ten Minute Rule.

A summary:
A Bill to give effect to Schedule 5 of the Localism Act 2011; to amend
section 52ZC of the Government Finance Act 1992 (inserted by that
Schedule) to require parish and town councils to conduct local
referendums in the event that they choose to increase their precept by 2
per cent or more in the following financial year; and for connected
purposes.



A record of the first reading on the 19th March is here:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmhansrd/cm130319/debtext/130319-0002.htm#13031966000001

It should be noted that Ten Minute Rule Bills are often an opportunity for Members to voice an
opinion on a subject or aspect of existing legislation, rather than a
serious attempt to get a Bill passed.
http://www.parliament.uk/about/how/laws/bills/private-members/

At least if it got to Second Reading stage it means he was given Government time for it. Could still be talked out then, though.
Everybody be nice about Mr Pickles, until 26 April...?

Anyway, it wouldn't change anything for 2013.

Very funny!