What does the District Council do for Frome?

Recent comments in the paper, on Facebook, twitter & here suggest that there is some confusion over the roles & responsibilities of our complicated three tiers of local government, and especially the role of the District Council, so I've taken a little look at some documents available from the District Council to help assess this & give some insights.

The overall services provided by the three 'layers' of government in Frome can be found here. Your Council Tax pays for the three tiers - Somerset, Mendip & Frome, plus the Fire Service & the Police Service. You can see the breakdown on the graphs above. For a typical Band D property, MDC takes £141.28 per year for their services [Somerset County Council get a whopping £1027.30 or 70% of the tax], of which £79.05 is spent on "Environmental & Regulatory Services' (56%), with 26% on 'Cultural & Related services' & 18% on 'Planning & Development Services'.  So out of the whole council tax budget only 5.4% is spent by MDC on 'Environmental & Regulatory services'. You can find the full figures here & the future financial strategy of the District Council here.

With regard to car park income from Frome to the District Council, this was £380,599 pa (2010). See more information about which car parks bring the most income here.  NB. For the population as a whole (29,638) this is £12.84 per person per year, or £1.07 per month.  Car park charges vary from 50p for half an hour to £2.50 per day, with two hours costing £1.10 in most of the car parks.  Surveys by the District Council show how people shop in the area, with some never coming to the town centre.

The accounts of the District Council give some information  for the top earners. In 2010/11 the Chief Executive, (exc. pension contributions), earned £95,929. 19 staff members earned more than £50,000, compared to 12 in 2009/10, with the top 5 earning at least £470,000 between them. The total remuneration for the previous Chief Exec., who left in Jan 2010, was £381,122, which includes 'Comp. for loss of Office' at £23,000 and 'Pension Cont' of £250,463 (pg 77. of Audited Statement of Accounts).