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 grass cutting and upkeep of the cemetery. We then create funds for a whole range of work that we either wish to continue or plan to start in the coming financial year. Full details of how we plan to spend are shown in the current year's budget document.

Once we know what we need to spend, we have to consider where the money will come from. We have limited sources of income such as allotment and burial fees and we can also consider spending some of our reserves and in different years we have done so depending on needs.

Our main source income is therefore the council tax precept which South Gloucestershire Council (SGC) collects on our behalf. We deduct an estimate of income from our planned spend and it is this amount that we ask SGC to collect for us and which appears on your council tax bills alongside demands from the County Council, the Police, and Fire Brigade. It is SGC who decide on the actual bill sent to individual households in Hawkesbury Parish.

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 current Financial Year can be obtained from the Parish Clerk.