This in from Isle of Wight councillor for Newport East, Geoff Lumley (Lab), in his own words. Ed
In late 2013, town and parish councils were urged by the IW Council’s Deputy Leader, Cllr Steve Stubbings, to increase their precepts for 2014/15 by 40p per week for a Band D household.
£1m could have been raised
This would enable them to take on some of the discretionary services County Hall was going to have to cut to address a £28m budget shortfall over the next three years.
If all town and parish councils agreed this it could have provided nearly £1m to save services. Sadly most town and parish councils chose not to do this.
£140,000 raised by increasing precept
However, one that did was Newport Parish Council. By doing so they more than doubled their previously very low precept (second lowest) and created a reserve fund of over £140,000 for use towards lost discretionary services – eg. grounds maintenance, beach cleaning, valued local facilities, an environmental officer service – from 2014/15.
However, as 2014/15 now draws to a close Newport still has this money sitting in the bank.
Lack of contact from IWC
Getting County Hall to tell us what the services we wanted to take on would cost has been like drawing teeth and even now amounts to just £60,000 – but not until April 2015.
Consequently I will be proposing to Newport Parish Council next week that we reduce our precept by most of the £142k next year, resulting in a 36% decrease for one year only.
Money could have been used
What strikes me is that we have had this money available for all the past year, but the IW Council has not assisted us in allocating it to discretionary services. And this despite the IW Council’s budget this year being overspent by a further £1m, to add to the £28m savings originally required.
