Can terms of reference overturn financial regs.

Question

In May 24 an Open Spaces committee was formed and the terms of reference has that it has

 authority to spend the budget assigned to maintain the parish owned open spaces and spend budget assigned to specific projects in the parish council owned open spaces.

The actual budget headings they could spend from was not specified and the village green area is not parish owned but on a very long term lease. The total for all the open spaces comes to more than 50% of the council's budget.

Financial regs were approved in June 2024, and there was the usual limit of £5k spend from a committee. The committee receives most of the feedback on a project which was for over £20k. The spend was authorised by full council. They have recently approved a contract of over £8k, stating that extra money will just have to be pulled from reserves. It was not referred to full council.

Are they within their powers to agree a contract over £5k? Should it have gone to full council as financial regs say or can they just spend everything without referring to full council?

Often there are only 3 or 4 councillors present at the committee, so decisions can be taken and implemented by very few people, one of whom has huge conflicts of interest.

Answer 1

Even if within budget I'd argue that financial regulations must be complied with.  Personally I'd expect the committee to draft the specification for the project/contract, discuss the quotes and agree to recommend acceptance of the quote by the preferred contractor to full council.
From the extract you've given, there is nothing I can see that would suggest the committee has power to override financial regs.

Comments

Thank you. It is part of ongoing problems with a rogue council.

Answer 2

Not enough people actually bothered to read and digest the MFRs and the proposed ToR before adopting them.  No surprise there...

Comments

Thank you. The councillors who are related to the sports clubs have used a committee to put many things through that I would have expected to go to full council and the terms of reference are wooly enough to allow them to do that. Normally wouldn't matter but in this council it does matter.