St Peter Port came close to running out of money

The douzaine has finally produced missing accounts that were never signed off for 2021, 2022 and 2023, and said it has also experienced a shortfall in its finances it has moved swiftly to rectify.

The parish has taken the extraordinary step of bringing forward the remede from April to this month in order to get rates bills out to parishioners and bring extra cash into the parish accounts.

Previous constable Zoe Lihou resigned in August last year citing personal matters and accepting her role in not meeting the legal requirements for finalising the parish’s accounts. But she denied being responsible for the current financial position.

Constable Diane Mitchell, who was elected just weeks earlier, said the 2021 and 2022 accounts were as expected and they were not very different to the budget that was asked for in the Royal Court.

‘Where it goes adrift is 2023, where there was a significant change of both constable and office staff,’ she said.

‘We were talking about a loan [this year], because we would have not been able to wash our faces in February and March and part of April, because when you send the remede out, it takes time for people to start paying.

‘We’re struggling. We’re aware of that, and we’re just trying to make sure that the bills that go out are fair.’

The remede to be collected through the rates, put forward for Monday’s parish meeting, which excludes refuse charges, has increased from just over £600,000 to £734,000 to cover the parish’s expenditure for the year.

Mrs Mitchell said that on taking up office she discovered that the parish had about 14 separate bank accounts, and money was being moved between them, and it had taken time for accountants to make sense of them all.

Included in that was a floral account with £37,000 in it, but nobody currently in the office was able to make changes to it.

‘And with all those bank accounts, we were paying bank charges.

‘We’ve now got one current account for day-to-day expenditure, and one savings account,’ she said.

Mrs Mitchell also said that she had been told that it was said that parish finances were strong at the end of 2023, and so it was decided that the 2024 remede would be held at the same level.

‘That was not only incorrect, we’ve been making up for it ever since, and so this year, technically, we’ve run out of money, which is why we’ve got to have the remede so early.’

She said the parish currently had only £24,000 in its current account.

‘We have got money in a 92-day notice account, and hands up, I didn’t notice that when I first took over,’ she added.

‘I’ve now triggered it in time for us to get those funds on 14 March.

‘Between now and then, we’ve got enough to pay our bills.’

When Mrs Mitchell came into the post in July 2024 she said she contacted the parish’s auditors and asked on progress being made with the parish accounts. She said she was told that the firm had not been approached.

‘I immediately knew there was something wrong, because we had been led to believe in a meeting that those accounts were in with the auditor for completion.’

The accounts have finally been published after what Mrs Mitchell described as some ‘forensic accounting’.

The meeting takes place at 7.30pm on Monday, in the Harry Bound Room at Les Cotils.

‘REMEDE WAS A DOUZAINE DECISION’ SAYS FORMER SENIOR CONSTABLE AS SHE REFUTES CLAIMS ABOUT PARISH’S FINANCES

Former St Peter Port constable Zoe Lihou has refuted allegations that the current position of the parish’s finances had been down to mistakes made during her time in office.

‘There was always a surplus, and we earned £20,000 in interest last year due to an investment I made into a 92-day access account,’ she said. ‘We never had a shortfall when I was on watch.

‘If they are asking for more this year, they are making an excuse.

‘Every budget I prepared was correct, so I don’t understand why they are asking for more money.’

She said the remede for 2024 had been reduced at the request of the douzaine.

‘We reduced the bill in 2023/24 as the douzaine members complained we were sitting on too big a surplus and we should reduce the bill to try and help parishioners out during the cost-of-living crisis,’ she said.

‘This was voted for at the douzaine meeting and will be in the minutes.’

Mrs Lihou also denied there had been 14 bank accounts under the constables’ control when she stepped down.

She said she had personally spent a lot of time shutting accounts down over a couple of years and increasing revenue elsewhere, such as increasing rental charges on some of the parish properties.

Though she did accept, as she admitted when she resigned last summer, that the accounts for 2021, 2022 and 2023 should have been submitted.

‘The accounts were not put in as I had personal issues at the time, and we did not have the correct staff in place to do them,’ she said.