Financial Information

The Parish Council prepares a new budget for each financial year, much of what we spend is either pre-committed such as The Clerk's salary or things we are obliged to pay such as insurance premiums or for the electricity to keep the street lights running. We then build in funds for a whole range of work that we either wish to continue or plan to start in the coming financial year, for example maintenance of council property such as the play equipment or committing monies to spend on monitoring traffic during HS2 construction. Full details of how we plan to spend are shown in the separate 2020/21 budget document.

Once we know what we want to spend, we have to consider where the money will come from. We have very limited sources of income, bank interest is minimal, burial fees are variable and there are some other random amounts of money that arise during the year such as from the sale of surplus timber when a tree is felled. We can also consider spending some of our reserves and in different years we have done so.

Our main source income is therefore the council tax precept which Daventry District Council (DDC) collects on our behalf. We deduct any estimate of income from our planned spend and it is this amount that we ask DDC to collect for us and appears on your council tax bills alongside demands from the County Council and the Police. It is DDC who decide on the actual bill sent to individual households in Byfield.

All meetings of the Parish Council take place in public so anyone is welcome to come along and observe and with the Chairman's agreement ask questions or make points for the council to consider. Budget and precept setting normally forms part of meetings that take place in December and January and are shown on the published agendas.

Further details of the Parish Council's budgets for the 2020/21 Financial Year can be obtained from the Parish Clerk.

In accordance with the regulations the unaudited accounts of the Council for year 2019-20 and all papers relating to these accounts may be viewed by any parishioner between Monday 17 August 2020 and Tuesday 15 September 2020 inclusive.