Readers have been in touch with The Bridge to express confusion over Berwick Town Council’s financial organisation.
Parish Councils are funded through a sum of money called a ‘precept’.
This is a separate charge which is added to your Council Tax bill and collected by Northumberland County Council (NCC) on behalf of the Parish.
It is essentially the shortfall in funding that results in a parish’s estimated annual expenses minus its expected income (e.g. allotment rents), divided by the number of Band D equivalent properties in the parish.
Once the Parish Council has set its budget and calculated its precept, it will submit a ‘precept demand’ to NCC, who will calculate the charge per household in the parish and add this to your Council Tax bill. NCC is then obliged to pay the precept to the Parish Council to meet their funding needs.
Berwick is different to every other parish in Northumberland because, as well as precept and other income such as rents, it receives ‘Schedule III’ money.
Schedule III money refers to funds provided by the Freemen Trustees to Berwick-upon-Tweed Town Council, amounting to £147,000 in the 2025/26 budget. For the 2026/27 budget the payment was just under £200,000; £52,000 more than last year.
These funds are primarily used for one-off community projects, improvements, and maintenance rather than ongoing operational costs.
There is no accountability for the money to the Freemen. No receipts are provided nor expected. And the Town Council provides no record of the expenditure to the people of the town.