Owslebury & Morestead Parish

Parish Council Funding – the Precept

The Precept is a tax, included within the local Council Tax, which enables the Parish Council to perform its functions.

Parish Councils can apply for other funding such as grants and funding awards, generally for specific projects, but they do not receive funds directly from central Government.

How is the Precept calculated?

The Parish Council is required (in law) to agree a budget before it can set its Precept and both must be agreed by the full Parish Council.

Once the Parish Council has forecast its budget requirements for the following financial year, it requests this funding from its ‘local billing authority’ – in our case, Winchester City Council (WCC) – in the form of the Precept.

WCC then converts the Precept into an amount per Council Tax payer that is added to the Council Tax bill (according to the property band) for all the dwellings within the Parish area.

A Precept Calculator is published on the Parish Council website in the papers for the January meeting each year so that the Council is able to make an informed decision on various scenarios.

The Tax Base

The Tax Base is produced from the Council Tax system at WCC which gives a listing of all the properties in each town or parish in the District.  It then adjusts this to take into account any discounts that are given, for example, single occupancy, second homes or homes that are empty or exempt.

The properties are then translated into Band D equivalents using the following ratios:

Band A       6/9
Band B       7/9
Band C       8/9
Band D       9/9 (base line)
Band E       11/9
Band F       13/9
Band G       15/9
Band H       18/9

For example Band A is six-ninths of Band D and Band H is twice Band D.

Finally, the estimated number of Band D equivalents to be built in the year are added to the list.  This then gives the total number of Band D equivalent properties to use for the Tax Base.

The Tax Base is used to calculate the Band D charge for each town or parish which is done by dividing the total Precept requirement by the Tax Base.  This figure will be compared with the previous year’s Band D charge and supplied to the Parish.

For instance, for the 2023/24 financial year for Owslebury and Morestead, the Tax Base was 397.56, but the estimated Tax Base for 2024/25 is 398.68.