79.9% of your tax goes to…
Oh boy, do I have something special today! For the last two years, I have been fine-tuning my favourite AI model (and no, it is not ChatGPT). Today, for the first time, I fed it pure financial data and told it to create charts and write an article about what it found. No bias, no my usual commentary — just pure analysis based on publicly available numbers.
But then I decided to add a prologue and an epilogue to the AI text, just to flavour it up. So, please bear with me and allow me to introduce you to the first-ever AI-written text for our blog.
DATA — THE FOUNDATION OF EVERYTHING
What data, you ask? Well, I used something we all understand — money. I downloaded the 2025 financial reports for the four main towns in our District and told my AI to analyse them, prepare charts, and describe its findings for readers of Shirebrook247. No edits. No polishing. No bias. Pure AI looking through a magnifying glass at the final year of the outgoing Shirebrook Town Council administration under Labour Party “star” Chris Kane and comparing it to other main population centres in Bolsover District.
Please remember that the data is one year old. We don’t have the data for this year yet. I treat this article as a training run before I get my hands on the 2026 data and create an article for this year.
BUT WHY DO I SPEND SO MUCH TIME ON THIS ARTICLE?
The answer is weird and simple. I listened to a podcast about local government in which a speaker cited research showing that, on average, 46% of council tax income goes on staff wages. That got me thinking: how much Shirebrook tax goes into government workers’ pockets. That’s how this article idea was born — out of pure curiosity.
The simple answer is: in Shirebrook, 79.9% of tax income goes on staff wages.
EIGHT OUT OF TEN TAX POUNDS GOES TO…
Yeah. You read that right. Eight out of every ten pounds you pay in council tax goes straight to employment costs. Not to maintain buildings. Not to community projects. Not to reserve for a rainy day. To staff. Pure and simple- Town Clerk, her family, all Labour-hired people, and a few unlucky ones who have to pull that wagon forward, no matter their political or family affiliation.
THE ODD ONE – SOUTH NORMANTON
Before we go any further, I need to add one crucial comment about South Normanton’s situation. You see, a few years ago, Labour Party councillors in that council decided to create CIC and move Council-owned property from Council books to that newly created CIC. Does it remind you of something?
In essence, they took out a huge chunk of council operations and outsourced it to an entity under the complete control of politically selected people. I heard that the “board” has the power to BAN people from the premises. Who do they ban? Those who ask questions. Does it remind you of something?
I also heard that each year a certain amount of tax money goes into that CIC, but residents have no way to scrutinise spending or how it is used. It would be worth investigating that topic because I heard some wild stories about that building and how it’s managed by people deeply embedded with thepolitical structures of one particular party.
But it’s South Normanton’s problem, not Shirebrook. So all I want you to remember is that SN numbers are… problematic. They look good on the surface, but when you look closer, the narration starts to crack and show deep problems.
AI DOESN’T KNOW WHAT YOU WONT TELL HIM
Do not be scared of AI; it is a good thing, but for now, humans still need to be in the loop to polish bumps and mistakes. In the case of this article, I had to add a note in (brackets), so no one can accuse me of misinformation- it’s not an AI mistake. Those comments came from a narrow scope of analysed data.
So, without further ado, here is the first-ever AI-written analysis published on Shirebrook247. For those who enjoy charts — and I know many of you do — there will be plenty of them. AI went hard on those AGAR reports. AI — take it away. (Until the closing note, none of the text below is mine.)
WHY IS SHIREBROOK THE MOST EXPENSIVE TOWN COUNCIL IN THE REGION?
A financial comparison of four Derbyshire councils using publicly available Annual Governance and Accountability Returns (so-called AGAR- SZ) for the financial year ending 31 March 2025.
Shirebrook Town Council collects more council tax than any comparable council in our region (excluding Elmton and Creswell Parish Council under Labour Party leadership-SZ). It also spends a higher proportion of that money on staff than any comparable council in our region. And it has less money left in reserve than almost any comparable council in our region. These are figures taken directly from each council’s own official financial returns, submitted to external auditors and published under legal obligation. What follows is a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of where your money goes — and why the answers should concern every Shirebrook resident.
COUNCIL TAX LEVIED ON RESIDENTS (PRECEPT)
Shirebrook Town Council collected £847,000 from residents in council tax in 2024/25 — the highest precept of all four councils examined in this comparison. Old Bolsover, a town of comparable size, collected £587,494. South Normanton, with a population of over 10,000, collected just £376,574. Clowne collected £458,680.
Shirebrook residents are therefore contributing significantly more to their local council than residents of neighbouring towns, before a single penny has been spent. The question this article sets out to answer is simple: what are residents getting in return for paying the highest council tax in the region?
OTHER INCOME (NON-TAX RECEIPTS
Beyond council tax, councils generate additional income through grants, fees, facility rentals and other sources. Old Bolsover leads this category by a considerable margin, bringing in £406,818 in non-tax receipts — nearly double Shirebrook’s £233,021. Clowne generated £241,751 in additional income, while South Normanton brought in just £37,716 (because majority of income is generated in CIC building-SZ).
Old Bolsover’s strong performance here is notable: it demonstrates that a well-managed council can reduce its dependence on resident taxation by actively generating income from other sources. Shirebrook, despite having the largest precept, generates less additional income than both Old Bolsover and Clowne, placing greater financial pressure on council tax payers.
TOTAL INCOME VS STAFF COSTS
When total income is placed alongside staff costs, the picture becomes uncomfortable. Shirebrook’s total income of £1,080,021 is the highest of the four councils — yet the faded bar representing staff costs consumes an extraordinarily large proportion of it. Staff costs of £676,780 represent money spent on salaries, employer National Insurance contributions, pension contributions and related employment costs.
In practical terms, for every pound Shirebrook Town Council receives, the vast majority never reaches a service, a project or an improvement for residents — it goes directly to employment costs. No other council in this comparison comes close to this ratio.
STAFF COSTS AS % OF COUNCIL TAX INCOME
Expressed as a percentage of the precept alone — the money taken directly from residents’ council tax bills — Shirebrook’s staff costs consume 79.9p of every pound collected. Old Bolsover spends 73.7p in every pound on staff, Clowne 61.5p, and South Normanton just 26.8p. To put this another way: for every £1 Shirebrook residents pay in council tax, less than 21p is available for anything other than staff.
South Normanton, by contrast, retains over 73p in every pound for services, projects and reserves. This is not a marginal difference — it represents a fundamentally different approach to how a council manages public money. (note- this is an example of how CIC is skewing the numbers-SZ).
STAFF COSTS AS % OF TOTAL INCOME
When measured against total income rather than precept alone, the same pattern holds. Shirebrook spends 62.6% of all income on staff — significantly ahead of Old Bolsover at 43.5%, Clowne at 40.2%, and South Normanton at just 24.4%. This metric is important because it accounts for all money coming into the council, not just council tax. Even with additional income factored in, Shirebrook’s staff cost ratio remains in a category of its own.
The consistency of Shirebrook’s position across both measures — precept-based and total income-based — rules out any methodological quirk. The council simply spends a disproportionate share of its resources on staff, regardless of how the calculation is approached.
STAFF COSTS PER RESIDENT
Perhaps the most striking way to understand this disparity is to calculate what each council spends on staff for every resident it serves. Using 2021 census population figures, Shirebrook Town Council spends £50.89 per resident on staff costs. Old Bolsover spends £35.85 per resident. Clowne spends £36.35. South Normanton spends just £9.96. Shirebrook’s figure is more than five times higher than South Normanton’s, and significantly above both Bolsover and Clowne.
Every man, woman and child in Shirebrook is effectively contributing over £50 per year purely to cover the council’s employment costs — before a single building is maintained, a single event is organised, or a single community project is funded.
BALANCES CARRIED FORWARD
A council’s closing balance — the money left in reserve at the end of the financial year — is a measure of financial resilience. Old Bolsover ended 2024/25 with reserves of £1,423,555. Clowne held £311,220. South Normanton, despite being the smallest spender in this comparison, grew its reserves to £176,224 — ending the year in a stronger position than it started. Shirebrook ended the year with just £201,146 in reserve.
For a council collecting £847,000 in council tax annually, this is a remarkably thin financial cushion. It represents less than three months of staff costs alone, and leaves virtually no room for unexpected expenditure, emergency repairs or financial shocks.
RESERVES RUNWAY
The final measure asks the hardest question: if Shirebrook Town Council stopped receiving all income tomorrow, how long could it continue to operate on its existing reserves? The answer is approximately 2.2 months. Clowne could sustain operations for 4.3 months. Old Bolsover, with its substantial reserves, sits comfortably above that benchmark. South Normanton, the most financially efficient council in this comparison, could operate for approximately 4.3 months despite having far lower reserves, because its expenditure is so much lower.
The widely accepted minimum standard for local councils is three months of expenditure held in reserve. Shirebrook falls below that threshold. A council that collects the most in council tax, spends the most on staff, and holds the least in reserve is not a council that is managing public money well. Residents deserve better — and in 2027, they will have the opportunity to demand it.
A NOTE ON METHODOLOGY
All figures are drawn from Section 2 of each council’s Annual Governance and Accountability Return (AGAR) for the financial year ending 31 March 2025, submitted to external auditors and published under statutory obligation. Population figures are from the ONS 2021 Census. No figures have been altered or estimated. Readers are encouraged to examine the original documents themselves.
(End of AI section)
DID YOU ENJOY IT?
I will be honest — I enjoyed it only so-so. Yes, the text is objective and full of facts, charts are colourful and easy to read, but the text lacks that “oomph” I always try to add. What is more, the AI did not use all the charts it prepared. If I am being straight with you, I expected more — though I will admit the article has its own style, which is different from what I trained this model on.
If you know anything about AI, you know that modern AI responds only as well as you engineer the prompt. Better prompt — better answer. Usually, I prompt something, look for weakness, and build a new prompt to get a better answer. Prompt engineering has become a real term in the AI world, and after 4 years of working with AI, I have developed a few tricks of my own.
MODERN AI
Modern AI will not think for you. Modern AI will not add imagination for you. Modern AI will do exactly what you asked it to do and rarely more. It will make you look dumb if you have nothing to add on top of pure, dry sentences. AI still need someone hard-working on the other end to provide palpable results.
That got me thinking. I need to improve my prompt. I need to poke it, provoke it, challenge it — exactly as I did with the previous administration on Shirebrook Town Council. As I do with the Labour Party in Shirebrook. From all 15 of old-Labour cronies, only 2 are left: Brian “The Biden” and Fred “The Silent”. STC would be so much better without them, but they decided to ignore their lacking capabilities and keep themselves welded to the seats at a crisp age of… 90.
I FORCED THE CHANGE. AND I WILL KEEP AT IT
Look at how things have changed since Shirebrook247 started to poke our Council. The council went from one meeting every two months to several meetings in a single month. Yes, new councillors forced Labour to work harder — but none of that would have happened if I had not shown residents how little was being done in the previous years.
Hate me if you like- but the truth is that I INSPIRED THE CHANGE. I’m proud of it.
NEW PROMPT
I will run this experiment again. I need to teach my AI not to leave unusual data without question: why? I need to teach it to be a little more aggressive in its narrative and metaphors. I need to teach it that writing for people is not just dry data and conclusions — it is something more. Something that has to touch the reader’s soul and encourage them to do more than just read and forget.
So I have a lot of work ahead of me — and probably more angry comments on Facebook from people who claimed that hiring family members is a “miners’ tradition” (it is nepotism) and that giving contracts to companies connected to councillors’ families is “caring for local businesses” (it is a conflict of interest).
Meanwhile, look forward to your next tax bill. Imagine- 8 out of 10 pounds is spent on staff. 1 is wasted. 1 goes for what you really need as a resident…
Sylwester Zwierzynski
Lead illustration: GROK (first draft) and ChatGPT Imagine 1.5 (captions).
