Finances

How we’re funded

Benson Parish Council provides local public services to the residents of Benson, RAF Benson and Preston Crowmarsh. These services are funded by a form of taxation called a precept, which is collected as part of the council tax we all pay on property. How much council tax you pay will depend on the band your property is in, but for an average house in band D, the figures for 2025-26 can be broken down in this list.

The precept that we receive from your council tax isn’t enough to maintain all of the services that we provide to the parish, so we raise additional revenue to offset the shortfall, by hiring out the various halls that we have to local groups and events, and by renting out some of the small parcels of land we own around the village, including our allotments. This extra income helps us balance the books.

Benson Council Tax 2025/26 Band D

£1911.40 (76%) to Oxfordshire County Council
£283.28 (11%) to the Police
£151.24 (6%) South Oxfordshire District Council
£153.03 (6%) to Benson Parish Council

So the contribution Benson receives works out at around £153 a year for each Band D property, which is an increase of 10p per week on last year.

SODC has produced a video showing how your council tax is spent by each authority – click here to visit their site.

Each authority is also required to produce detailed financial information about how the money raised is being used, and you can find this via the links here for:

Finally, SODC also has a handy online council tax calculator that will show you exactly how much you will be paying to each authority for your band of property.

Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL)

The other source of income that the parish council has at the moment comes from the Community Infrastructure Levy. This CIL money is paid by housing developers, such as Cala and David Wilson Homes, as a contribution toward the supporting infrastructure in the area in which they’re building. It can amount to considerable sums of money, although payments are phased and can take up to three years to arrive in the parish. And, as is the case with council tax, the bulk of the CIL money is retained by the county and district councils, with only a smaller amount being transferred to the parish or town council. In general, the share of CIL money transferred to the parish council is 15% of the total, but having an agreed Neighbourhood Plan in place increases this share to 25%. Benson is lucky, as we worked hard to put together our Neighbourhood Plan in recent years, and so will receive this higher level of CIL.

There are two important things to remember about CIL money. First, it can only be spent on certain things – mainly infrastructure that will be of benefit to the community over a long period of time. The work that we’ve funded from CIL at the Faye Elizabeth play park on Sunnyside is a good example of this. The second thing to remember is that CIL money is timebound – it has to be spent within five years of being transferred to the parish or it goes back to the district council to spend. Understanding the village’s priorities and allocating CIL money to projects is a main concern for the parish council at this time. You can find out more about the CIL monies already transferred to the parish by browsing through our finance documents below.