Portland Town Council discussed the events budget at a finance meeting

A finance meeting was held at the new council offices at Three Yards Close on Wednesday.

During the meeting, councillors discussed future events budgeting.

Interim Town Clerk, Wayne Lewin, told the council that it needs to take more care when funding future events.

He said: “For all the events I have been clerk for there hasn’t been a budget pre-approved.

“Nobody has said this is what we will spend the money on or this is how much money we will get back.

“My best advice is that for any event you organise you preapprove how much money there is to spend on them."

He said the event’s organiser needs to meet with the finance officer to discuss where the budget will be spent.

Addressing councillors, he said: “Somebody needs to bring it to the finance committee so you as a council can preapprove it.”

Chairman of the meeting, Councillor Susan Cocking, said: “We need to find out how much these events cost before we do them.”

Councillor Jo Atwell said: “For the last two Sparkle events we have done, we needed more supplies on the night – that wasn’t covered. Those extra supplies were crisps and wine for the punch, but we need to put a contingency budget together in case we need money on the night.”

Cllr Cocking said: “We have done two summer fetes and Christmas Sparkles, if we know the costs of them, we will have some figures, so we will know how much money was spent on each event.”

Mr Lewin added: “You can’t go spending money willy-nilly.”

Cllr Atwell said there needs to be more ‘discipline’ when organising events and added: “I absolutely admit that we haven’t imposed much self-discipline in the way we have behaved. I take your point and will tell the events group.”

Resident Paul Snow said that in light of Local Government Reorganisation the extra services the town council will be taking on will be more than enough to keep it busy, without organising community events.

However, Cllr Atwell responded: “I think we have established a precedent. The Sparkle is expected an valued. To stop those two events would not just be a shame but a let down and i think people would miss it."

Cllr Cocking concluded: “I propose we have costs of the last two years of the summer fete and the Christmas Sparkle and we will discuss them at the next meeting.”