Unless the Town Council is willing to cut services and employees there is very little room for manoeuvre.
Cutting back on capital projects will just store up problems for the future. Whilst tempting to cut, the Town Council should keep making resources available for the upkeep and renewal of its buildings and facilities.
What is essential is the Town Council sets a budget which reflects the costs and upkeep of its services it is to provide. The other temptation is to use reserves to keep down the net cost of the budget. This would be a retrograde step.
A Council with this number of staff doing what it is doing will cost between £950k - £1 million (These figures includes a higher capital spend and taking on public toilets, both currently excluded). Unpalatable as it is, the only way to keep down costs is to cut staff and services. This means Central Administration and Grounds Maintenance will have to be cut. Put together these have increased by over £150,000* pa in the last two years. If a majority of our Town Councillors don't want to cut services and staff then our Councillors will have to bear any political costs.
The financial jiggery pokery mainly, but not totally, under the Giles and Thorpe regime only stored up troubles for the future. Talk about efficiency savings could be good but is not the answer to underlying problems of this Town Council.
As for the The Church Car Park, this should not happen and will be a waste of money if it does.
As for the Public Toilets. SNTC cannot afford without putting up the Council tax. Don't do it!
As for the meeting itself, I'm in two minds whether to go. The last meeting I attended made Dibley Parish Council look competent.
Documents
TC Agenda - 15/12/09
Option 1 Summary
Option 2 Summary
ECC Option 1
ECC Option 2
Salary Increase
* Ground Maintenance is £83k higher than in 2008/09 budget. Administration is £68k higher over 2009/10 budget.
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