Lighthorne Parish Council - Finance

Audit reports, expenditure & assets

The Parish Council is audited annually under the terms of the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014. Here is an extract of the relevant sections. We have adopted these model financial regulations.

We produce an Annual Governance & Accountability Return (AGAR) and engage an internal auditor. Provided we pass internal audit, and provided our annual income and expenditure for the year are both £25,000 or under, we can apply for exemption from external audit. In this case we complete an AGAR 2 form. If we do not qualify for exemption then we complete an AGAR 3 form and engage the mandatory firm PKF Littlejohn to conduct our external audit. Once completed these forms are published here.

Statutory reports and supporting documents

Where does our money come from, and where does it go?

Each year we submit a request for a precept payment from Stratford District Council, and this amount is paid by all council tax payers in the parish according to the council tax band of their dwelling. The success of The Pavilion Café means we receive a substantial additional income in rent. We are constantly on the lookout for grants from various sources to pay for specific projects, and occasionally we may receive funds as a consequence of development activity.

There are a number of regular outgoings such as payment for the Clerk, for grass cutting, electricity for street lighting, subscriptions and grants. Exceptional payments come up from time to time, some of which may be covered by grants. Income and expenditure are summarised in our budget statements, and the detail may be inspected on request, including our bank statements.

It is permitted to hold reserves allocated to specific projects, but the aim is to ensure we have enough to cover regular and anticipated exceptional expense without building substantial unallocated reserves. It is not a precise science, which is why guidance suggests holding an amount equivalent to half the precept as a buffer.

To give you an idea of what our spending means for each household, the table below shows the cost for each household by council tax band for each £1,000 spent by the Parish Council, by budget year. If our only income was the precept the figures in brackets show what each household would pay for each £1,000 spent.

Earlier submissions