May 2023 Clerk's Report
HOGSTHORPE PARISH COUNCIL
Agenda Item 7
CLERK’S REPORT FOR COUNCIL MEETING 11th MAY 2023
WEB SITE
The web site is still not as up to date as I would like. AGAR is still to be entered and Minutes and Agendas archived. I am still working on this but may need some expert training through LALC.
ACCOUNTS
Internal Auditor has now examined the accounts and given her report, stating the many omissions and errors, a copy of which together with my notes has been given to all councillors. Financial Accounting will now be done in accordance with policies and procedures with a three month financial statement tying accounts to budgets.
VAT re-claim schedule is being put together. The year 2019-2020 is difficult to corelate to VAT numbers as there are no records of invoices for that year. I am getting help from someone else to tie these up. I am also having difficulty in setting up the account with HMRC as the Unique Reference Number has been lost. It may be that another account has to be set up – I am working on this.
PAYE has been set up and payroll done but I am unable to submit the information to HMRC as the identity ID and password was set up by the previous clerk and I am unable to access it – will try to get this sorted over the next week or so.
BANK ACCOUNTS
Still no bank accounts properly set up with Barclays and Lloyds despite several lengthy phone calls to them by myself and the Chairman. I am currently holding £176 from the Playpark income. If the Lloyds account is not resolved shortly, I will pay this money into the HPC account at Barclays. I need to be able to access accounts on line so that I can get older information and reconcile bank statements but this is proving a lengthy process to complete.
ELECTIONS
This process is now completed. Councillors will be asked to sign the appropriate paperwork at the AGM. Councillor training will be looked into.
CLERK’S TIME
I am still putting in an average of 11 hours per week extra to the 10 hours agreed. I will continue to do this until everything is sorted. Getting everything resolved via the internet and phone calls is proving to be a very time consuming process. I would suggest that until this is done, there can be no advert placed for a permanent clerk.
Kath Hayes
Interim Clerk
08/05/2023