The End of Year (Month 12) financial figures for the White Elephant Enclosure (WEE) make for interesting reading, especially compared to the Year to Date figures for Month 11. With only a month difference between the two figures you would expect to see a modest improvement in income. However the financial figures put before Councillors at last weeks Smalltown and DULLBRIDGE (SaD) Town Council Full Council meeting show that income at the WEE more than doubled in a single month. A feat that would make even Alan Sugar jealous.
In Month 11 total income to date is shown as £46,642. Fast forward to Month 12 and the total income for the year has increased by £59,661 in the intervening month to give a final year end total of an impressive £106,303.
Leaving aside the fact that £13,600 paid out for an insurance claim is included as income, (which technically it is, as it has to be accounted for somewhere, but aside from starting fires at the WEE every month it is not a figure which can be guaranteed as income every year), there seems to have been some form of seasonal adjustment going on.
The Month 11 figure for ‘Refreshments’ is listed as £69 but in Month 12 sales of ice-cream have suddenly jumped to £900 That’s an awful lot of ice-cream consumed by WEE goers in a month.
Similarly WEE users have suddenly developed a liking for WEE T-shirts. In Month 11 sales of Merchandise is entered as £1,755 but a sudden spurt in sales increases that figure to £4,445 by Month 12.
Another set of figures which showed dramatic improvement between Month 11 Year to Date and Month 12 End of Year is listed under the heading ‘Participation PT’ quite what this is for is unclear, but the figures for Month 11 show a modest £3,500 income, in Month 12 the figure of £10,094 has been entered, a £6,500 increase. Whatever Participation PT covers the WEE could definitely do with more of it every month.
Box Office revenue contains a much larger anomaly. For Month 11 the figure is shown as £2,610, by Month 12 this has shot up to a massive £33,600. Even over the year, if this figure is correct it would mean that the WEE was selling £2,800 worth of tickets every month – something anyone who follows ticket sales knows never happens, as most events fail to sell even half of the available tickets.
It is possible that the WEE accountant is now including ALL Ticket Sales as ‘Box Office’ revenue – even the figures for shows where the WEE has been hired by an outside group (for example the Smalltown Literary Festival or Dullbridge Festival of Arts). In which case you would expect to see some sort of payment listed under expenditure, as these groups get 100% of the ticket sales, but there is absolutely nothing in the accounts to reflect this.
Many of last year’s most popular events were put on at the WEE by local groups on a hire basis, either at a commercial rate or the community rate. Whilst some of these groups, such as The Soft Lad School of Boxing, handle ticket sales themselves, some do make use of the WEE’s ticket booking service.
The amount paid for the hire would be recorded in the accounts as ‘letting income’ and the revenue from ticket sales made by the WEE would then be passed on to the hireee. Strangely, nowhere in any of the SaD monthly lists of cheque payments does any amount appear which would correspond to any of the groups or individuals who have hosted an event at the WEE. Which, if there is no payment out, must mean that all events run on a straight hire basis must run at a loss for the hirer. Even the ones which have sold out.
In Month 11 total income to date is shown as £46,642, against a budget (expected income) of £60,000, with a further £14,198 income required to hit target. By Month 12, not only has the WEE income met the target, it has positively smashed it out of the water with an income of £106,303. The previous years (2021/23) income was entered as the more realistic figure of £55,806.
What on earth can have brought about this huge increase in income at the WEE? Has it really managed to turn things around in a single month? Has someone put new batteries in the calculator? Even the previous Smalltown Culture and Arts Manager (SCAM) never managed to make the WEE figures look this good, and we thought she knew all the tricks.
There is no explanation for the massive differences in any of the figures between Month 11 and Month 12. If it has been found that a lack of accounting knowledge amongst staff, due to the lack of a Smalltown Head of Malfeasance, has led to the discovery that figures have been entered incorrectly over the year shouldn’t this have been explained to Councillors before they signed off the accounts as true and accurate? And if the numbers have been found to have been entered incorrectly for 2022/23, does that mean the figures were wrong for 2021/22, given that the Month 11 2022/23 figures were more on a par with the 2021/22 final figures.
And why have none of the Councillors themselves spotted these discrepancies and asked the question?
Expenditure for the year to date in Month 11 was £130,294. This saw a further increase of £60,000 to give the final figure for expenditure in the last financial year of £196,949 (£16,412 spent per month) which is on a par with 2021/22.
Income less Expenditure leaves a shortfall of only £90,647 to be made up from Town Council subsidies. If the income really was that good last year then why did SaD Town Councillors agree a subsidy of £170,000 for the WEE for this coming year? And what has happened to the rest of the money which must surely have been left over from the funding given by SaDTC in last year’s budget?
Something doesn’t add up.