Please find below a response from the Parish Council to queries raised on the 2024/25 budget:
At the meeting of Full Council held at Judson’s Pavilion on Tuesday 16th January, a question was asked about staffing levels and costs and I would like to take the opportunity to respond fully to the points raised.
We are fortunate as a parish that we have a CILCA qualified Clerk and RFO who is contracted for 32.5 hours per week and a Deputy Clerk’s position ( currently vacant) for 30 hours per week.
The 2023/24 budget provisioning for Staffing Costs was £63000
The Budget for 2024/25 is available on line and a staffing cost of £85000 has been provisioned for the financial year starting on 1st May.
In June 2023 the Parish Council commissioned an independent staffing review by LGRC to ensure that the Parish Office is adequately resourced and that the salaries ( all in line with the Local Government pay scales) are at the correct level.
The ICO have advised that we should not release even a heavily redacted copy of the Staffing Review as it contains confidential personal information about individuals and salaries , I am able to provide a partially redacted copy of the Personnel Committee Meeting Minutes where the Staffing Review was discussed and the recommendation of an additional 25 hours per week resource accepted.
The budget for 2024/25 includes these additional staffing costs and the figure of £85000 is in respect of 4 staff members. The Clerk, Deputy Clerk ( vacant and advertised ) a Finance and Grants Officer ( 10 hours per week advertised ) and an Assistant Clerk ( 15 hours per week advertised).
A total of 87.5 hours per week or the equivalent of 2.36 Full time staff.
As mentioned, the Staffing Review recommended the need for an additional 25 hours per week and two roles making up this cover have now been advertised. The contractual basis for both of these will be a 12 month Fixed Term arrangement with the option at month 9 for the role to become permanent subject to the Parish Council being assured that the need for additional resource remains.
Questions were also raised about the provisioning in the budget for website provision.
Since September 2020, all parish, town & borough councils must have a website that complies with Website Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 AA rating so that it meets Accessibility Guidelines as set in the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility regulations. The Public Sector Bodies (Websites & Mobile Applications No.2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 aim to ensure public sector websites and mobile apps are accessible to all users, including those with disabilities’ 2.1 AA compliance covers many areas of a website and include how it’s constructed, how the user navigates around it, how the information is presented & displayed.
Each year, the Parish Council has to undergo an Internal Audit and at the last 2, the Parish Council has been advised that the current website does not meet these requirements ( provisioning for a new website was included within the 2023/24 budget but was removed) and our auditors have confirmed that the situation must be addressed or we will fail the annual audit inspection.
Costings for a new website were obtained prior to the budget setting and an indicative figure of £8000 was provided. The £6000 provisioned is therefore lower than this and investigations are continuing as to whether it is possible to bring the website up to standard without the expense of a full new site.
Finally, concern has been expressed about the percentage increase of just over 29% on last year’s precept figure.
In 2023/24, the initial precept figure was £170375. The decision was taken to support the budget by using £19,000 from General Reserves thereby reducing the precept total to £151375.
If this action had not been taken, the increase on 2023/24 would be 15.12% which is in line with the increase in precept averaged over the last 7 years.
The annual precept amount in 2023/24 was £45.11 per household and for next financial year, the figure is estimated to be £63.44. Had the 2023/24 budget not been subsidised, the Band D figure would have been £49.37, so an increase of £14.06 per year for 2024/25 or 27 pence per week.
In terms of the Band D amount for Gravesham; it totals £2155.82. The proportion of this going to the Parish Council is just £49.11.