There is an interesting story in the Spin Good News Latest News section of  the South Lakeland District Council website – Councillor Clare Feeney-Johnson, has been shortlisted for a national award.

She has been shortlisted in the (rather catchily named) Local Government Information Units Achievement Awards (LGIU) for Sustainability Champion of the Year Award . The submission paper for the awards “lists Cllr Feeney-Johnson’s achievements which show her passion for the environment“.

One of  the criteria for the award is

That they practise what they preach

In which case, would she please explain why SLDC have chopped down about 2o trees near Kendal Castle to provide a space for a playground BEFORE a decision has been made to move the playground to this site? Having previously said

one of the key priorities of South Lakeland District Council (SLDC) is to ensure South Lakeland is a safer, greener, cleaner and stronger community

According to Councillor Clare Feeney-Johnson, one of the key priorities of South Lakeland District Council (SLDC)

is to ensure South Lakeland is a safer, greener, cleaner and stronger community

If so, would she please explain why SLDC have chopped down about 2o trees near Kendal Castle to provide a space for a playground BEFORE a decision has been made to move the playground to this site?

In less than a couple of months, my district council. South Lakeland District Council (SLDC), has managed to waste more than £400,000 by making the wrong decisions. The specific details are:

Installing new parking ticket machines to make sure tickets could not be transferred from driver to driver and then changing their minds – £340,000

Losing £100,000 owed to SLDC by K Shopping Village, having previously allowed the owners to defer payment – £100,000

Settling a claim by disabled drivers re parking on SLDC car parks because they didn’t follow procedures – £55,000

Cutting down trees they planted less than ten years ago to move the Castle playground (yet again) -£12,000

The playground decision is too recent to have appeared in the Westmorland Gazette but the councillor for the Castle area has said that the proposal to move the playground is going ahead. She also told my wife that the council had been paid the £100,000 by K Shopping Village!

I don’t know if the new playground needs planning permission but if it does then I can’t trace the application on the SLDC site. I guess it must be going ahead though because they’ve cut down about 20 trees, as shown in this photo.

So much for SLDC’s green policies!

The latest issue of the face of Windermere & Kendal has an article about tax and Christmas, written by me.

The online version of the magazine is available here. And if you’re stuck for a gift for the man in your life look at Bedroom Athletics on pages 20 and 21. And for something completely different, my article is shown below!

At this time of year, with January tax bills just over the horizon, it’s difficult not to think of HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) as Scrooge rather than Father Christmas, but even HMRC shows a little Christmas spirit by allowing tax relief on Christmas parties for employees and sometimes even for the business owners themselves.

Not surprisingly the rules are complicated and if you’re self employed, as opposed to being a director of your own limited company, your party dinner will not qualify for tax relief.

In very simple terms there is an exemption from tax and National Insurance if you provide a party which meets three conditions:

• it’s an annual event
• the event is open to all of your employees
• the cost per head of the event isn’t more than £150

And, because HMRC refers to an “annual event” it doesn’t have to be a Christmas party. It could be a summer barbeque.  Better still, if you want to hold a Christmas party and a summer barbeque, provided the combined cost of both events is no more than £150, the exemption still applies.

Spouses and partners may also attend and the £150 exemption is per head not per couple. VAT can be reclaimed on the cost for staff but not for spouses and partners.

For those bosses who are truly entering the festive spirit, they should remember that trivial seasonal gifts are also “tax free”.  HMRC‘s advice is:

An employer may provide employees with a seasonal gift, such as a turkey, an ordinary bottle of wine or a box of chocolates at Christmas. All of these gifts can be treated as trivial benefits.

Sadly Scrooge may be the right image for HMRC after all because “If the gift extends beyond one of the items mentioned above, for example from a bottle or two to a case of wine, or from a turkey to a Christmas hamper” it may not be trivial and therefore taxable.

Bah humbug.

I am delighted that Cumbria has been given £5m from the government’s Regional Growth Fund which will allow Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP)

having worked very closely with partners, to construct a programme that will support key priority sectors in Cumbria as well as promoting SMEs and exports

As usual the devil will be in the detail but what concerns me even at this early stage is who the partners are!

Cumbria County Council and Cumbria Chamber of Commerce will “deliver the project” and CN Group, publisher of The Cumberland News, will be the “media partner”!

What experience of “business development” does a county council have? The same question can be asked of Cumbria Chamber of Commerce, whose Business Start-up Support Programme is delivered in partnership with numerous public bodies and quangos Britain’s Energy Coast, Cumbria County Council, Cumbria Rural Enterprise Agency, Furness Enterprise and Ways into Successful Enterprise.

And, finally, what is a “media partner”? What will CN Group be doing to promote SMEs?

Yet again, we see government money intended for businesses being shared around public bodies and the numerous business support quangos which still exist in Cumbria.

Nothing changes.

P.S. Midden has many meanings.

John Wormall,  a local businessman has just been banned from acting as a company director for five years by the Insolvency Service.

Over a period of 13 months he failed to pay more than £450,000 PAYE and NIC to HMRC, which to anyone in business will seem absolutely unbelievable. We act for clients who, if they are a few days late with their monthly payment, receive a phone call from HMRC.

As always when a company fails there are many victims – the employees, the suppliers, the other creditors and we the taxpayers ourselves. Inevitably there are fewer culprits – the directors spring to mind and sometimes the banks. Tempting though it is to blame HMRC , in this case, for allowing the debts to rise I don’t believe it’s their fault.

The real culprit is this government and previous governments for not giving HMRC enough money to do their job properly. It’s painfully obvious to everyone but politicians that money spent on HMRC is an investment not a cost. It should be increased not cut.

Writing in last week’s in-cumbria newsletter about the Olympics, Julie Tait, director of Kendal Arts International said

Half way through the Olympics and the bread and circuses seems to be having the desired effect ……so far.

Her recent enthusiasm for the Olympics (see quote below), when Kendal Arts International organised On the Night Shift, one of the opening events for the London 2012 Festival  seems to have waned somewhat

We are really honoured that the show will be one of only four the official opening events of the London 2012 Festival

Mind you if I was organising events funded mainly by the taxpayer I wouldn’t be describing anything as a circus!

Hidden away in the Public & Legal Notices of this week’s Westmorland Gazette, measuring barely 3cms. square is this notice

Not many readers will notice it and of the few who do most will not understand what it means but, in the week following the cancellation of this year’s Torchlight Carnival, it must raise questions about SLDC’s funding of “street festivals”.

The Torchlight Carnival street collection raises thousands of pounds for charities .

The collection at the jointly run Kendal Arts International (the Mintfest organisers) and Manchester International Arts event to celebrate the arrival of the Olympic Torch went to ……………………………….themselves (see above).

I was on holiday in Cornwall last week when I heard  that this year’s Torchlight Carnival has had to be cancelled because of lack of sponsorship (Click on link) and too few volunteers.

My immediate reaction was sadness. The Torchlight Procession, as it was originally called, started in 1970 and over the years has been enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of people. But then I started to wonder why South Lakeland District Council failed to reply to the committee’s request for sponsorship. It isn’t as if the council doesn’t realise the importance of “providing better certainty for the planning” for this type of event. After all they made sure that Mintfest had their money a year in advance (Click on link)! And it isn’t as if one is bigger than the other, or is it?

All of which suggests, yet again, that in South Lakeland there’s one rule for some ………..

this happens.

South Lakeland District Council elects a new leader