Local People Making Local Decisions
In 2019 I first heard about a plan to try to establish a Windsor Town Council and was curious to find out more, so as usual I started asking questions.
I was initially shocked to find out that I was paying something called an Unparished Precept as well as my Council Tax bill. It wasn’t a vast amount of money being paid each year (around £32 a year for my Band D property) but I had no idea what it was for and who decided how much I should pay.
Further research jarred my sensibilities when I discovered that nobody else really knew at the time exactly what service was being provided for my £32.
There were vague ideas of the things that it might cover, but no granular detail of exactly what was being spent and where.
I have always had a strong sense of injustice and to me it seems fundamentally unjust to have Taxation without Representation or indeed not having a clear idea of what my hard earned Taxes are being spent on.
I have since discovered that our Unparished Precept is not based on full activities that would usually be associated to a Town or Parish Council.
It appears to be based on a calculation that starts with some costs for 4 areas of activity in the combined Unparished Areas of both Windsor and Maidenhead.
These 4 areas are:
– Administration of the Town Forum
Total Cost: £1,216,965
These combined costs are then apportioned to the Windsor Unparished Area and the Maidenhead Unparished Area based on their respective Tax base.
Windsor: 13647
The problem with this calculation is that it may or may not reflect the actual activity in each Unparished area.
The other problem with this is that the amounts of money spent in each area is not decided by any locally elected Representives in either area.
It also excludes residents who happen to live in these Unparished Areas from a whole Tier of Democracy.
This is particularly unjust as all others areas of The Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead have Parish or Town Councils elected to administer their precept.
You will note in the areas surrounding Windsor that Residents there is:
– Datchet Parish Council
– Old Windsor Parish Council
All of whom have the ability to decide:
– What discretionary services to provide
– How much to spend on each service
Parish Councillors and Town Councillors are elected so if they do things of which a majority of their electorate might disapprove they can be replaced at the next Elections.
In my opinion, the Residents of the Unparished Areas of Windsor should be trusted to elect their own neighbourhood representatives and not suffer decisions that affect the area being made by people who are elected to represent areas outside Windsor.
The current Constitutional arrangement for RBWM often means that a Cabinet Member elected to Represent a Ward in (for example) Datchet gets to formulate Policy that disproportionately affects Windsor Residents, whilst the same Cabinet Member would need to defer to his Datchet Parish Council to formulate the same Policy for his own Ward Residents.
The establishment of a Windsor Town Council also opens up opportunities for the Unparished Areas of Windsor to:
– Directly Benefit from Grants and Community Infrastructure Levy awards.
– Become a focal point for local residents views to be heard and coordinated.
– To become the Coordination point for local projects, events and initiatives run by the community for the community
– Facilitate Markets, Festivals and other community engagement projects.
In my own personal opinion the Town Council could eventually take over the running of all non statutory services for the area, leaving the Borough Council to concentrate on all Statutory Obligations.
This will, I believe become even more desirable given Central Governments hints to amalgamate Unitary Authorities such as Slough, RBWM and Bracknell into Super Authorities with Populations greater than 500000.
One thing is certain.. the current arrangements are not sustainable.