Council Meeting
10 July 2025
BUDGET MONITOR 202 4/25 Q1

1. All Committees
The Council’s budget for 2025/26 is £207,383.50 of which £160,000 is funded
by the Precept. The remainder will be taken from reserves. At the end of Q1
the Council had spent £37,964.09 (18.3%) of its budget for 2025//26.

2. Burial Grounds
Q1 has seen expenditure of £1,279.79 (14%) of the Burial Grounds budget
with cemetery fees income of £2,800 slightly more than the anticipated £2,500
per quarter. The fees for the new contractors have been well within budget.

3. EBNP (Review)
The only expenditure this quarter has been £8,000 for the traffic consultants
which is just under half of the budget for their work which is continuing. The
Committee has £21,000 remaining for its consultancy and neighbourhood
plan work.

4. Playing Fields
A relatively quiet quarter comprising regular payments with only one larger
payment of £960 for grounds maintenance clearance work enabling the
cricket club project to proceed. Total expenditure amounted to £2191.07 (11%)
of the budget.

5. RFF (General)
The only expenditure in Q1 was the Litter Picker’s salary, £1871.11, (9.98%)
of the budget. The larger items of expenditure will occur later in the financial
year.

6. RFF (Car Park and toilets)
Toilet cleaning, £1,875, and utility charges comprising electricity and
water/sewerage, £633.33 totalling £2,508.33 (16%) are the regular payments
which have been incurred in Q1. Regular maintenance of the car park is
ongoing and the contractor will submit an invoice in due course.

7. SPF (General)
Regular payments have comprised the bulk of the committee’s expenditure in
this quarter. Primarily these comprise Insurances (£530.18), Subscriptions
(892.30), Internal audit fee (£370), Salaries, NI and tax (£9,282.87), Parish
Office ((£4,042.32), Broadband, phone, email and website support (781.72)
and media consultancy (£1,425). This quarter has seen the greatest call on

the Events budget with the Summer Fair (£1,573.38). Some additional costs
on this will spill over into Q2, but all within the budget of £4,000.

Contingencies have not been called upon to a great extent and only £411.60
has been spent on three items.

Bank interest continues to be at a healthy level and the receipt of £1,935.58
slightly exceeds the anticipated £1,875 per quarter.

The VAT refund for 2024/25 was £22,876, though the Council has expended
just over £25,000 in VAT payments in Q1, due to the large payments from the
CIL fund and from reserves in connection with the tennis and cricket club
projects.

Total expenditure in Q1 was £17,881.79 (£25.38%) which suggests a break
even position by the end of the financial year.

8. SPF (Grants)
Just two grant awards this quarter, Lighthouse Women’s Aid £500 and the
PCC Hardship Fund £750. 91.7% of the budget remains available for the rest
of the financial year.

9. Young People
The first payment to the Youth Club contractor, £2982 (14.2% of budget) was
the only expenditure in this quarter.

10. Other income and expenditure
There has been unusual other income and expenditure in Q1.

In April income, apart from the half year precept (£80,000) and the VAT refund
(£22876), there was a CIL receipt of £106,220.38. In addition, £40,000 was
received from the Tennis Club. Together with the £20,000 received in the
previous financial year, this comprised the Tennis Club’s contribution to its
project.

Reserves of £61,147,74 were expended. These were for the Tennis Club
project as follows: Anglian Water £7,880.96, Containers Direct £20,525, 800
Ltd (main contractor) £29,998, UK Power Networks £707.04 and also for the
Bowls Club shed £2,036.83.

There were also two smaller payments totalling £729.83 taken from Parish
CIL when the Tennis Club’s £60,000 had been exhausted.

In May expenditure of £20,832.75 was the Parish CIL contribution for the
cricket club project and £8,320.25 was taken from reserves and ‘loaned’ to

that project, pending the ability to claim it back from the approved Babergh
CIL award.

In June Parish CIL was used to make a further stage payment of £22,380.21
to the Tennis Club contractor.

Graham White
Parish Clerk
3 July 2025