Financial Information 2019/20
The Town Council is open and transparent about the way it manages its finances. This page contains information on the way the Council protects its finances and what it has spent money on. The Council’s finances are monitored on a day to day basis by the Responsible Financial Officer (Town Clerk). The Finance Committee also take an oversight role for the Council budgets at their quarterly meetings.
Precept – The Town Council receives the majority of its income through the precept; an annual sum of money collected with the Council Tax by Northumberland County Council. The precept, set by the Town Council in January, for 2019/20 is £254,981 which amounts to an increase of 24 pence per week for the majority of Band A properties.
How the precept was calculated 2019/20
You can view the full agreed budget here.
Financial Reports – The Income and Expenditure Reports show the income and expenditure accounts for the Council. The Council routinely and voluntarily publishes an updated list of all Council payments over the amount of £250 for the financial year.These reports will be made available after they have been reported to the Finance Committee. You can view payment lists for previous years in the Year-end archives
Grants and Awards
Section 137 of the Local Government Act 1972 allows local authorities, including Parish and Town Councils, to award grants which will bring direct benefit to their area.
The Town Council is able to provide a grant or gift to an organisation for a specific purpose that will benefit the town, or residents of the town, and which is not directly controlled or administered by the town council.
The law requires grants to be “in the interests of or will directly benefit the area or its inhabitants, or of part of it, or some of it” and “the direct benefit should be commensurate with expenditure”.
You can download the grant application forms for funding from our Policies & Documents page.
Please find below the link to a list of Grants and Awards provided by the council to local organisations for the period 1st April 2019 to 31st March 2020.
