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EAST BERGHOLT PARISH COUNCIL

MINUTES OF THE STRATEGY, POLICY AND FINANCE COMMITTEE MEETING

26 January 2023

Present – Parish Councillors
Councillor M Hockley
Councillor J Miller
Councillor N Roberts

In Attendance
Mr G White, Parish Clerk
No members of the public were present.

1. CHAIRMAN FOR THE MEETING
Councillor Miller was elected Chairman for the meeting.

2. APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE
The Committee noted the apologies for absence received from Councillors Elmer and Woodcock

3. DECLARATION OF INTERESTS
None.

4. MINUTES
The minutes of the meeting of 23 November 2022 were approved as a correct record.

5. MATTERS ARISING/UPDATES
None.

6. CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH
The Chairman reported that the Congregational Church had received advice that the local deacons
own and manage the church though the Federation are the trustees. As long as the local deacons
survive they have the primary view on what should happen to the church.

The local deacons want to transfer the ownership of the Council on the basis that it is used for
community purposes. The Federation require any transfer to be in accordance with the law and with
the approval of the Charity Commission. Lawyers will be advising the Federation on the nature of the
transfer. Currently it was unclear whether this would have to be from charity to charity but if so the
Council would need to agree the principle subject to the nature of the decisions. If the Federation felt
unable to transfer the property free of charge, the Council may have to purchase at a fair price.

It had taken eighteen months to get to this very positive point and there was considerable goodwill
from the local deacons.

The Clerk was requested to investigate the charity options.

A further option was for a transfer to the United Charities but this was considered to be less beneficial.

Grant funding may be available for the project with the fall back of a PWLB loan which was usually at
base rate plus 2%. Whilst the funding required further consideration once a firm proposal had
emerged, It was agreed to recommend to February Council that negotiations should continue to the
point of a firm proposal being reported to Council for consideration and that preparations be made to
establish a charity if necessary and to obtain advice in order to understand the implications thereof.

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7. ELECTION ARRANGEMENTS
The Committee favoured the publication by the Council of an impartial information sheet containing the
brief details of all truly independent candidates but not containing particulars of any affiliated or tied to
any political group which could issue its own publicity.

8. VIREMENTS
The Clerk sought the advice of the Committee upon how it wished to deal with potential budget
overspends. At its last meeting the Council had made available additional money for grant aid to be
funded by virements from underspent budgets or from reserves. The issue was whether to cover any
budget overspends by virements from underspent budgets as they occurred or to allow committees to
overspend at the year-end provided that in total the approved budget was not exceeded. The
Committee considered it to be more transparent to show the real expenditure of committees whether
over or underspent provided that any overspends were contained within the total council budget.

9. URGENT COMMUNICATIONS
None.

Chairman…………………………………………………………………………………….Date………………………………………..