Frodsham Town Council have agreed to draft a new protocol on working group expenditure, following concerns that the procurement of last year's Christmas tree did not comply with finance regulations.

What happened?

In January, the FTC Events Committee received an invoice for the cost of the tree, totalling £2,574. However, Committee Chair Ryan McKeown said that this amount had never been presented to the Committee for approval, despite this being a requirement of Council finance regulations.

During the Committee's September meeting, Town Clerk, Jo O'Donoghue, had 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."

This came as Chair of the Christmas festival volunteer group, Cllr Judith Critchley, detailed plans for the year's celebrations.

At this point, Cllr Critchley said that the exact cost of the Christmas tree was not yet known, but added that it could be discussed at a later date by the Events Committee or Full Council.

According to Cllr McKeown, this never happened.

During the Council's January meeting, Cllr Critchley argued that, once a budget had been agreed for a particular event, the protocol did not require working groups to seek permission for individual items of expenditure.

How will the issue be addressed?

This confusion led to a review of the Events protocol at an extraordinary meeting of FTC on Wednesday 24 February.

Here, Cllr Critchley proposed the creation of a new protocol concerning the management of working group budgets.

"The problem that we have is that the Events protocol is not really fit for purpose and we don't have a single clear protocol on how we control working group expenditure and ordering of services and goods," she said.

"Because it is a grey area I think it's important that we do have a protocol to make sure that anything any working group does has a set of rules which comply with finance regulations."

"There shouldn't be any room for misinterpretation."

Cllr Critchley also argued that the protocol was 'not clear' on whether groups were required to seek approval before placing orders above £500, claiming that Council authorisation had been requested retrospectively in the past.

Other Councillors disagreed with this assessment, with Cllr Phil Griffiths saying: "We have procedures in place, they just need to be followed correctly. And that's what should have happened with the Christmas tree."

Meanwhile, Cllr McKeown reminded Cllr Critchley that she had been informed by the Clerk of the need to seek approval, "and ignored it."

"I didn't ignore it; it didn't register with me and I have apologised for that," Cllr Critchley replied.

Cllr McKeown continued: "Well now we all know that we can break financial protocol and then simply apologise for it five months later."

The Council voted unanimously in favour of drafting a new procedural document, but Cllr McKeown asked that all Committee Chairs be involved in drafting it.

Cllr Caroline Ashton added that "there should be someone [at working group meetings] taking notes and making sure that they are adhering to the protocol."

Councillors also voted against a proposal to commission an independent investigation into the procedures followed by working groups, in particular in relation to approval for ordering and paying for goods and services.

On this subject, Cllr McKeown said: "I don't think it's in the interests of our residents to be paying for any sort of independent investigation. I think the best way to move forward is to draft a new protocol and to move on from there."