What is a Parish Council ?
How is the Council funded ?
There are three sources of external funding available to LIPC – precepts and grants from the District Council and loans from a range of sources. In addition, LIPC has its own reserves or savings that have been built up over the years.
Precepts are, in effect, local community charges raised on behalf of the Parish Council by the District Council as part of their annual Council Tax charges each year. LIPC requested and received £42,800 for the year 2007/08. This represents about 95p per week for a Band ‘D’ household in the village.
Grants can be obtained from the District Council for carrying out work that they would otherwise have to organise themselves. A good example is grass-cutting where LIPC want more cuts (possibly to a higher standard?) than the District Council would provide directly so we organise the work, obtain a grant for part of the costs and pay the balance from our precepted income. LIPC is currently exploring a similar approach for litter picking.
Loans are normally avoided but a loan was raised in the late 1970s to pay for the Community Centre when it was built as an integral part of the new school. A loan was also raised in 2004 to purchase the new field adjoining the playing field. The practical effect of raising a loan is to increase the yearly precept by the amount of the annual loan repayments.
Reserves are increased by any unused income in a year and reduced to pay for a greater expenditure in a year than was originally planned. LIPC has traditionally maintained a healthy level of reserves (about 25% of one year’s income) so that funds can be made available to kick-start one or more major projects if that is what the village wishes to do.