Limit to charitable donations from PC

Question

Thank you for a very interesting forum!  It has sparked a lot of conversations with friends.
One acquaintance told me that his Parish Council had (according to their newsletter) donated nearly £8000 to a national health charity.  This is apparently about 20% of their annual precept.  This seems a lot - is there a limit on what proportion of council funds can be donated?  My friend isn't that bothered, and not interested enough to enquire further (it's not my PC), but it seems a bit odd.

Answer 1

It seems highly inappropriate but would depend if the council as general power of competence or not.  If they didn't then they would be restricted to s137 spending as the power of last resort and that comes with restrictions as to what you can spend it on and how much.  S137 spend is a maximum per year of about £8.40 per electorate that can be spend on something that is local and of benefit to a proportion of the community.  You could argue that a national charity is not local and many not be of benefit.

General power of competence as the power of first resort allows for a wider area of spending.  However, I would refer back to my first sentence and say that donations of that size from public funds is not a correct spend of the public purse.

Comments

Thank you - that's very interesting.