The Chair of Frodsham Town Council, Judith Critchley, has responded to public and councillor queries over the procurement of last year's Christmas tree.

This month, the FTC Events Committee was presented with an invoice for £2,574, covering the cost of the tree, and Chair, Ryan McKeown said: "I'm concerned that this invoice was never presented to this Committee for approval."

During their September meeting, the Events Committee discussed arrangements for the year's festive celebrations, with Cllr Critchley, who was also Chair of the Christmas festival volunteer group, reporting on the progress made so far.

At this point, Cllr Critchley said that she did not yet know what the exact cost of the Christmas tree would be, but added that this could be discussed later at an Events or Full Council meeting.

Town Clerk, Jo O'Donoghue, pointed out that: "there is a budget of £6,000 for the Christmas festival, but we still need to adhere to finance regulations.

"Unless the figure we're talking about is below £500 – in which case it can be approved by the working group Chairman – any expenditure needs to go through the Committee."

However, according to Cllr McKeown, this "hasn't, at any point, been the case."

At Monday's Full Council meeting, a member of the public also observed that there had been an "irregularity with the processes," before suggesting that Cllr Critchley "review [her] position as Chair."

Cllr McKeown went on to claim that the working group had settled on the Christmas tree on 2 September, adding: "You said on 23 September, that no financial commitment had been made."

In response, Cllr Critchley confirmed that this was the case, saying that "Until a few days before the tree was installed, we didn't know for definite whether we were even getting one."

Cllr McKeown continued: "In October 2020, the working group produced a document of income and expenditure. This document detailed a committed spend of £2,145 [ex. VAT] for the Christmas tree, in line with the quotes obtained in September.

"The Events committee then met on November 10. I was appointed Chair and you were to provide a report. I asked clearly in the audio if there were any actions that the Events Committee needed to take.

"Nobody brought any actions to vote on the procurement of the tree or on the cost of the tree, and no price was produced at that committee meeting.

He also said: "I think that through our ways of working, this Council has put very hard-working members of the working group in a very unsavoury position.

"[They] have done a great job."

Cllr Phil Griffiths seconded Cllr McKeown's point of view, telling the Chair: "Your role as the Chair of the Christmas working group was to report back to us. You have not produced any invoices and you have not produced the required three quotes. Therefore, you are well out of order in terms of our financial obligations.

"I am happy to pay the bill, but I would like to see a full independent inquiry into what has happened here. I think we need to have CWAC in here to examine what is going on."

Cllr Bernie Wade added: "You agreed to a two year contract without it coming to Council. That can't be right."

It has since been agreed that the Council will not have to pay for a second year.

By way of explanation, Cllr Critchley made the following statement: "I know there has been concern, confusion, heated debate, about the role of the Council, the Events Committee and the Events working groups.

"We have an Events protocol for Events working groups running in partnership with FTC, such as Christmas, Halloween, Frodsham Festival of Walks and the Neighbourhood Plan.

"The protocol only requires three things: membership of the partnership agreed by Council, budget agreed for the event and regular reports back to Council.

"In the five years I have been a member of FTC, all Events working groups have followed the protocol without incident and to the satisfaction of the Council.

"The protocol does not require working groups to seek permission from the Events Committee or FTC for individual items of expenditure from its agreed budget.

"As far as I'm concerned, we have worked exactly as we worked last year and exactly as these working groups have worked over many years.

"In 2019 the group raised £8,433 from market stall income and sponsorship from local businesses. Expenditure for 2019 was £7,383 and for this year, setting the tree aside, was £880.

"So the total is £8,263, leaving a balance of £170 of the working group money. FTC set aside a budget of £6,000 for each of those two years, and how much of it has FTC spent?

"A big fat nil.

Cllr Critchley added that both festivals had been financed through working group fundraising, with no requests made to draw from the Town Council budget.

"Because we knew that this Christmas was going to be really difficult," she continued. "And we needed to do something spectacular, we asked the Town Clerk if we could use our Christmas budget to pay for a spectacular tree.

"I appreciate that some things may have got lost over the weeks leading up to Christmas.

"We found the tree we wanted, we'd done all the research, we got different quotes and we went for what was a very reasonable option.

"I gave reports every meeting that I could, detailing where we were going with it. You weren't happy with the price, I accept that, but it was well within budget. The cost of the tree equates to about 16.5 per cent of the two year total budget that FTC set aside.

"We gave Frodsham two fantastic events. Nowhere have any group, over God knows how many years, had to come cap in hand to any committee or Full Council for permission to spend a few pounds.

Other Councillors took issue with this, with Cllr McKeown saying: "It's £2,500, not 'a few pounds', Chair. You're trivialising it."

Cllr Critchley concluded by saying that although she was Chair of the working group, she was not responsible for any of the documentation.

"I did what I did, and if you think it's wrong then I accept that it's wrong, but I have always been working under the Events protocol. It wasn't done deliberately or with any malicious intention.

Cllrs McKeown, Griffiths and Wade were not satisfied by this justification, but Cllr Mallie Poulton claimed that by criticising the Chair's actions, they were revealing an "agenda," adding: "We have never had to come back to Council to spend money on Christmas. It has always been given to the working group."

Cllr Wade argued: "If we broke the rules of this Council, the Chair would be the very first person to stand up and say: "you can't do that," and we are just questioning, that's all. It's not a 'witch hunt'."

It was agreed that the bill would be paid, but that the Events protocol should also be reviewed.

The full meeting can be viewed here.