Question

what happens if my parish does not submit a precept demand?

Answer 1

Then it is not entitled to any money for the year.  I would imagine it would be chased by your district / borough council to submit a form as they need this information for their budget setting too.

Answer 2

The Principal Authority is responsible for collecting income from all precepting authorities and needs to know in advance what that is in order to set Council tax bills. The Principal Authority (PA) should contact the PC to give them a deadline for submitting their precept, or confirm that as a precepting authority, they do not wish to raise any income from Council tax payers for the given financial year.  It is conceivable this could happen where a poorly managed PC or TC has accumulated excessive reserves, or unspent revenue.

Comments

I would comment that the Budget must be set first. The precept is then agreed based on the money required from Taxation and reserves have been reviewed.

Answer 3

There is no requirement to take a precept each year, so if you don't need the money, don't take one. You will still need to resolve to set a precept of zero, record it in the minutes and submit the paperwork to confirm this. The Government repeatedly threatens to cap precept rises for parish and town councils, but this is on hold for at least the next couple of years. The fact that it is even mentioned indicates how little they understand about the sector and how we operate. I took on a council with too much money in the bank and no spending plans, so I advised them to reduce the precept to a nominal sum for three years. We've now reached the end of the three year period and will be increasing the precept by 1,200% this year, marginally above the Government's suggested 2% limit!

Comments

What a honest answer.  Great for the residents too.

Answer 4

The precept should always be raised by inflation as the associated costs will be going up accordingly. Unfortunately people only remember putting up the precept. The long term plan should be to manage your expenses to the best of you ability but it is a sea-saw about providing services against budget management.