Marlborough Town Council looks like loosing a £31,325 council tax support grant it received last year from Wiltshire Council, members of the council’s Finance and Policy Committee were warned last night (Monday).
The grant, which some parish councils believed would be for four years, is apparently being axed, which will mean that the town council is faced with further cut-backs and/or will need to seek an increase in its precept.
“I have to alert the committee to the possibility that the support grant the council received last year of more than £31,000 may not be available for us this year,” committee chairman Andrew Ross told members. “I just want to put you in the picture. If it happens it will create us with some problems.”
Councillor Nick Fogg, who is one of Marlborough’s two representatives on the Wiltshire unitary authority, said he had raised the issue, adding: “Apparently the £31,000 was a one off, but I shall raise it again.
At the suggestion of Shelley Parker, Marlborough’s town clerk, he said he and others might make further representations. “I would not be optimistic,” he pointed out. “Obviously other places are in the same boat as we are.”
Dates have been fixed for each of the town council’s committees to agree budget spending plans for 2014/15, which they will present to the Finance Committee, due to meet on January 14 to consider its recommendations and a precept figure to levy on Wiltshire Council.
Meanwhile, the final internal audit report on the town council’s 2012/2013 has been presented to the Finance Committee by the independent company Audit Solutions Ltd.
It praised the additional work carried out by staff and new town clerk Shelley Parker following the sudden death a year ago of Derek Wolfe, the then town clerk.
And it added: “We are pleased to report that no significant issues have been identified during the course of the testing undertaken for the year, any minor queries being discussed and agreed with officers during the course of our visits.
“Consequently, no formal recommendations have been considered necessary and we have duly ‘signed off’ the internal audit certificate assigning positive assurances in all areas.”
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