Parish power: the secret cog in the council finance wheel | Jonathan Owen, chief executive, the National Association of Local Councils
By Jonathan Owen, chief executive, the National Association of Local Councils
It is almost always the case that any discussion or debate about local government finance isn’t really about local government finance at all. Because in short, it focusses on just one part of the local government family.
Namely the three hundred or so county, district, unitary, London borough and metropolitan boroughs that make up the principal council tier of local government in England. A number which is actually shrinking.
And the nations 10,000 (local) parish and town councils which make up the first, and most local, tier of local government, don’t even get quietly whispered into the conversation. Despite their ranks they are actually growing in numbers every year.
One might argue this oversight can be forgiven due to the fact that local councils only equate to about 1.8% of council tax.
In 2022/23 the overall amount of council tax raised by principal councils is £33.8 billion. While for local councils it is £655 million. Although this is nine times the amount raised in 1989/90 of just £73 million.
And the average Band D council tax for a principal council is £1,930, compared to £76 for local councils. In 1989/90 the average community charge levied by a parish councils was just over £5.
Unfortunately, and far too often, the first tier of local government goes unnoticed and gets overlooked.
Despite the fact that local councils are existing and sustainable model of community power, local leadership and public service delivery. Which is already giving people a voice and putting pride in place through the provision of parks and open spaces, markets, support for high streets and town centres, community events and so much more.
And providing local leadership to take action on local and national priorities from climate change to the cost of living, loneliness to local services, and transport to town centres.
But it is also the case that local councils are changing fast.
They are spending more, with billions of pounds a year invested in local areas if you include their overall expenditure, asset base and time spent by their 100,000 councillors to make a change in their communities.
They are doing more, be that through devolution and taking on services from principal councils or tackling the big challenges we face such as climate change, the cost-of-living crisis, health and well-being and housing.
And more are being established, as over 40 new councils have been established in the last few years, including the country’s largest parish council in Northampton with a population of around 120,000 people.
Their potential is simply vast, including doing even more, which is surely an open goal for helping a Conservative or Labour government deliver on a range of priorities be it crime and community safety, transport, broadband, local businesses, health inequality or pride in place.
So just where will the first tier of local government’s finances be in 2030?
This annual report* by Councillor Jane Smith, chair of Flowers on the River Community Council to the annual community assembly in May 2030 provides one possible answer.
This is my latest annual report and financial statement to our residents, businesses and other partner organisations following the recent online elections for your community council.
These historic online elections, which followed the successful national pilots which we took part in back in 2026, together with the wholesale national restyling of parish councils to community councils over the last few years, has certainly increased participation and interest with a record number of candidates of all ages and backgrounds standing for election in May.
I understand that back in 1966, just 13% of councillors in the country were women, which increased to 40% a decade ago. I am proud to report that we are now a 50:50 council. And that a third of our councillors are under the age of 21.
And of course, since the landmark Levelling Up and Regeneration Act 2023 which heralded community councils being established across all of England and benefitting from a universal general power of competence, this community council is playing a full part in leading change and improving everyone’s lives as the first tier of local government.
Supporting community-based health, local economic renewal and growth, affordable housing and local neighbourhood plans overseeing the retrofitting of local homes to deliver net zero and help tackle the climate emergency.
I wanted to mention just a few highlights from the last year.
Firstly, the financial saving from the move to online elections enabled us to reinvest this money in our Make A Change budget. This has been used to encourage more people to stand for election, support councillor training and development including the roll-out of new devices to all councillors and staff, cover any costs of attending meetings for councillors with a caring responsibility, and ensure we have the best possible technology to enable our hybrid council meetings.
Secondly, the continuation of the popular annual Coronation Day, which despite popular rumour, was not inspired by the Disney classic film Frozen, but instead the amazing response we had to our King’s Coronation events back in 2023. This now well-established weekend long programme of community events, completely free of charge and fully-funded by the community council, are consistently the most commented on all our social media channels. And more residents than ever have got involved by volunteering their time to help run things, building on the legacy of the Big Help Out. The Flowers Parkrun has been a particular beneficiary since the community council ran its Bring A Mate Out campaign. This led to an immediate doubling of the number of people helping out on a Saturday just by going along with a regular volunteer to see what is involved in helping run our regular and junior runs.
Thirdly, the Flowers Church Community Hub continues to thrive as a multi-use facility, run as a partnership between the church, the community council, our health partners and the newly established community business. I’m sure the next share offer will enable even more residents to invest in this novel enterprise, which with help from the Plunkett Foundation, saw us save the shop, pub and post office and bring all these vital services and more literally under the one roof of the modern extension to the church hall. The solar panels now installed on all our community facilities including the hub are enabling us to run all these buildings at almost zero cost and help provide free electric vehicle charging at several sites which we plan to expand over the coming years.
And finally, I think we can all be proud of our community’s two home grown Olympic heroes who built on their success in Paris with more medals in Los Angeles. The community council continues to use its general power of competence to provide small scale grant funding to individuals to help them achieve sporting success and inspire the next generation of youngsters in our community. The influx of visitors we have also seen as a result has been a boon to local shops and businesses.
I’m pleased that the new council has supported the results of the recent finance consultation and budgeting for real event, which I’m thrilled to say saw three quarters of all residents get involved. Of which 90% supported the increase in our precept. We have set an ambitious budget which will not only deliver our wide range of existing hyper local services, but also the following new innovative and forward-looking initiatives.
This year’s share of the local business support grant will be used to fund five new apprentice teacher assistants and complete the expansion of the free WiFi network to the whole community.
The income from our local energy regeneration schemes including the Flowers Meadow heat source pump will be used to support the retrofitting of our last few homes to achieve net zero targets.
We will be using the latest instalment of the government’s national renewal fund to complete the network of cycleways and green routes linking our open spaces to Flowers Station and the electric bike hire scheme funded in part by the Infrastructure Levy.
And our new community farm, orchard, wildflower meadow and woodland (including the planting of 6,000 trees, one for each resident) will also be funded by the enhanced Infrastructure Levy receipts we receive due to our neighbourhood development plan which allocated sites for new homes with a mix of tenures.
We will keep you informed of the delivery of these initiatives through real time phone and web updates and a full report in the annual governance return which now includes a wide range of information including a full assessment by our internal auditor accredited by the national internal audit forum.
And, of course, you can be reassured of our ongoing commitment to professionalism and good governance, as we will shortly be re-accredited by the National Association of Local Councils with a Quality Gold Award and we are looking forward to our first peer challenge facilitated by them with the help of the Local Government Association in the Autumn. Plus our popular and already impeccably attended training programme for councillors will now be mandatory for all councillors through new legislation, and this will continue to be delivered through our commitment to the national Civility and Respect Project.
I am immensely proud of what we have been able to achieve over the last year as a community council which is elected by you, which is here to serve you, and which is here working together with you. Thank you.
*This annual report is obviously fictitious but acknowledgment is given to Jonathan Flowers, the former chair of NALC’s Improvement and Development Board, who also wrote a fictitious blog about a local council which provided the inspiration for this article.