NTC Service Charges Options

[Simon Kirby]

In a few weeks time Newbury Town Council decides by how much to increase the service charges for next year. With the economy slumped the council are under pressure to reduce the burden of the service cost to the tax-payer, while at the same time service users don't want to see their bills increase. Tricky.

Having buffered this year's modest increase in the precept with some forward-borrowing to look good for the election, quietly dropping £30k from the budget margin, the Town Council now need to find £60k just to get back to steady-state, and with annual inflation now at around 5.4% that makes an 11.2% increase in the precept most likely. It might need more still as the Town Council's more than usually inept mismanagement of the Viccy Park cracks debacle soaks up 1.7% of the precept in secret reports and legal fees alone.

Raising revenue has not previously been a challenge for the Town Council. Only the allotment service has ever seen a substantial increase in charges and the Council operate a strict no-criticism policy with their site associations which suppresses any effective protest. In addition to that the services are heavily subsidised by the tax-payer so service income is relatively unimportant. Almost no one pays any attention to how the Town Council spends our money, or indeed knows the details of how they get it, so raising revenue has always been a simple case of upping the precept.

Since 2004 the Town Council have increased the precept in real-terms by an average 1.6% each year; in 2004 the precept was £677k, this year it went up to £917k, and next year it looks likely to exceed £1M for the first time ever. A 1.6% real-terms increase doesn't look so bad when you see that Newbury's population has also grown at around this rate, but the cost of providing the Town Council's services hasn't increase with the population; the market, allotments, football pitches, and cemeteries are just the same as they were seven years ago. What's happened is that an already inefficient council has become 10% less efficient, needing 11% more tax in real terms to provide the same level of service.

So come December the Town Council will most likely decide an inflationary increase in service charges and no one will pay much attention. However, there are some political difficulties.

The charter market. It runs at a substantial net loss, soaking up £48k of the precept to provide a lack-lustre shopping experience that became unsustainable in the eighties. In 2004 market rents generated £90k of revenue, and as the market has become less and less successful the Council have cut and cut the rents, to where this year rents were budgeted to generate just £58k. The Council like the market because it gives the councillors something to talk about in committees and it gives the army of officers something to justify their employment, so the Council will want to increase the tax-payer subsidy and cut market rents further, but the only option that serves the tax-payer is to drop the market altogether.

Allotments. Rents are already some of the most expensive around and the service is one of the poorest with barely adequate fencing on several sites, no site facilities such as toilets or trading huts, and an oppressive, exclusive management regime. The Council were too traumatized to impose any increase in rents last year after the snafu of the 47% increase in 2010, but the service still sinks 10% of the precept for a hobby enjoyed by less than 3% of households. Many councils run a successful allotment service at no cost to the tax-payer by allowing the allotmenteers to self-manage, and this is the best-practice recommended by the Local Government Association, but the Town Council aggressively suppress any possibility of self-management because for them it's a £106k turn-over business that keeps them employed and important. The only options that serve the tax-payer are to self-manage, or to put rents up from £6.94 to £40.00 per pole to cover the full service cost.

[Strafin]

I think they should put the rents up to £40 per pole then if that will sort it.

[Guest_xjay1337_*]

I agree, £40 sounds good.

[NWNREADER]

I think they should put the rents up to £40 per pole then if that will sort it.

I certainly believe such a step would encourage more investigation of the situation than Simon has thus far achieved......

[Richard Garvie]

I think we have one of the best markets for miles around, can you tell me who locally does it better? I certainly would never agree to the town council being scrapped, but there is room for a reduction in the cost base.

[user23]

£40 per pole sounds like a good idea to me too.

[Simon Kirby]

£40 per pole sounds like a good idea to me too.

Consensus, how cool is that! Would you mind if I suggested that you e-mailed your town councillors and told them how you felt? Councillors on the Community Services Committee are Martha Vickers, Gabrielle McGarvery, David Allen, Howard Bairstow, Jo Day, David Fenn, Eva Franks, Dave Goff, Arthur Johnson, Tony Stretton, Julian Swift-Hook, Ieuan Tuck, Mukesh Bansal, Jeff Beck, Adrian Edwards, Catherine Kent, Richard Kingsley Evans, and Elizabeth O'Keeffe. You can find e-mail addresses for most of them here.

[Simon Kirby]

I think we have one of the best markets for miles around, can you tell me who locally does it better? I certainly would never agree to the town council being scrapped, but there is room for a reduction in the cost base.

Sure, and the Morris Marina was one of the best cars produced by British Leyland.


If the market is so good, why doesn't it do enough trade to afford break-even rents. It might have a fighting chance to succeed if it wasn't for the dead-hand of the Leylandesque Town Council. But whatever, tell me why the commercially unsustainable charter market should be propped up by the tax-payer?

[user23]

Interesting suggestion, scrapping the Market.

Probably not a popular one with those that see Newbury as a quaint market town though.

[blackdog]

The real issue with the market is how NTC manage to run it at a loss - when they don't even run it?

I presume they aren't paying stallholders to turn up? The electricity bill can't be that huge. What else to they spend money on?

[Richard Garvie]

The real issue with the market is how NTC manage to run it at a loss - when they don't even run it?

I presume they aren't paying stallholders to turn up? The electricity bill can't be that huge. What else to they spend money on?

"administration" and marketing I guess?

[Simon Kirby]

The real issue with the market is how NTC manage to run it at a loss - when they don't even run it?

I presume they aren't paying stallholders to turn up? The electricity bill can't be that huge. What else to they spend money on?

A large part of the problem is that councillors don't ask this question. They don't get given the cost breakdowns, and they don't make it their business to find out.

The rubbish collection contract is two thrids of the running costs, but administrative costs are huge too. In 2004 running costs were £38,200 but direct staff costs were £50,400! - that's staff resource diretly delivering the market - I guess the Council ran a personal shopper service then or something.

The current breakdown is total running costs of £62,800 of which £44,300 is the rubbish collection, market management £5,160, business rates £6,500, marketing £2,000, and a few other bits and bobs. Energy supplies is £1,300. On top of that there's £17,800 for service team direct labour, and then another £30,000 of back-office and overheads to pay for things like the Community Services Committee and the Market Working Group and all of the the town council machinery to support it.

£44,300 for the refuse contract is certainly odd. It's not like the market generates tonnes and tonnes of rubbish, so if the traders took away with them the packaging and stuff they arrived with it would only take someone with a broom for two days a week, and if the market is so important to the council I'm sure councillors could do this on a rota gratis for the good of the Big Society.

I don't know who the contractor is, but it's possible it's WBC and £44,300 is a bit of a scam.

[Simon Kirby]

"administration" and marketing I guess?

Don't guess, please. The truth is out there...

[Cognosco]

Interesting suggestion, scrapping the Market.

Probably not a popular one with those that see Newbury as a quaint market town though.

It is no longer a quaint market town though is it- thanks to Parkway and other developments that have occurred and are planned?

But the crux of the matter is surely if the people of Newbury are not purchasing at the market should it not be allowed to cease? Or is it that NTC are imposing certain conditions and regulations that are making it too difficult for the traders?

If Simon's figures are correct then why does it cost so much for administration?

[user23]

Perhaps the Allotments could be used to subsidise the Market and other activities, with a percentage of the produce grown on Council owned land sold at the Market to support the Council?

[Cognosco]

Perhaps the Allotments could be used to subsidise the Market and other activities, with a percentage of the produce grown on Council owned land sold at the Market to support the Council?

Why should any subsidy be needed for the market? Whether from the allotments or the taxpayer.
If I shopped at a small independent shop and it was not making a profit or if Camp Hopson was not making a profit should we then subsidise them from the taxpayers or the allotments? If the Market traders or the allotmenteers can run it themselves and make it pay, then relieve the taxpayers of the burden then let the council ahnd it over.

[spartacus]

Interesting though isn't it.... Thousands spent on the 'piazza-fication' of Newbury Town Centre when Him above rarely allows this large expanse to be used like your continental piazzas, with the day to day bustle of cafe-culture ......

Local businesses giving up in the face of the Red Tape Storm that they have to fight through in order to get a couple of tables set up on the cobbles....

And now it seems that the market (some reasonable stalls but mainly tat...) is an enormous loss and a bit of embarrassment....

Trouble is.. there's no wriggle room for the council to return it to a car park (which is probably what this area is best suited as) now that 'The Pedestrianisation' is complete and buses and taxis are banned....

[Andy Capp]

Perhaps the Allotments could be used to subsidise the Market and other activities, with a percentage of the produce grown on Council owned land sold at the Market to support the Council?

Let the allotments self-manage and you have a subsidy ready made.

[user23]

Let the allotments self-manage and you have a subsidy ready made.

Good idea in the short term but this will cost taxpayers a lot more in the long run when they have step in and bail out things if they're mismanaged.

[Cognosco]

Good idea in the short term but this will cost taxpayers a lot more in the long run when they have step in and bail out things if they're mismanaged.

Are they not mismanged now??? Are they not costing the taxpayers now??? Worth a try as the council seems mystified on how to run them without exorbitant costs!