The Midsomer Norton Town Council Budget hiatus is a crisis brought about by a clear lack of leadership. 

To have agreed a precept without a budget puts the proverbial financial cart before the horse, exemplifying the fact that the Councillors are incapable of discharging their fiduciary duty.

Yet this crisis of leadership has been evident since the very beginning of this process. From November 7th when they agreed to the budget going to a working party to December 5th when the budget was sent back to the very same working party, in both public and private, the Town Council lack the leadership to push forward any vision of where their priorities lie and how they intend to fund them.

Taking into account January and February’s Full Council Meetings, the budget has been debated by the Town Council on four occasions, not including the times the working party has met and has seemingly proved incapable of coming to any form of decision, let alone a consensus.

In the absence of leadership, we have seen only chaos. Resignations from staff and a Councillor and now the very real threat of procedural impropriety in relation to the Local Government Finance Act, has seen the Town Council graduate from farcical incompetence to worrying negligence.