This is my opportunity to answer any questions that you might have on financial matters. If you have any questions, please get in contact with me (jcr-treasurer@queens.cam.ac.uk).

If you’re the president / captain / treasurer of a college society and are looking for funding, take a look here.

Room Rent Review

This year (2011-12), we’re undertaking a full room rent review in conjunction with the MCR. The eventual aim is to move to a system of banding (with no more than 9 bands across all college properties) that will simplify room rents (which you may have noticed often differ room from room) while keeping the total rent income constant.

This obviously means that the rents for some rooms will go up, others will go down. I hope to be able to publish the calculations so people can check themselves that the overall room rent total is not being covertly increased!

Obviously, rents will still be subject to the annual percentage increase, leading me nicely onto:

Room Rent Increases

As the JCR, we have the opportunity to propose changes to the balance of room rents across college – something that we’re planning to use this year (see above).

At the end of the year, Governing Body approves, on the recommendation of the bursarial committee a percentage increase in rent which is applied to all main-site properties (there’s a separate figure for the external houses).

The room rent increase for the 2011-12 Academic Year is a 4% rise above inflation (8.25% total). 4% above inflation is a standard increase agreed by a previous JCR committee and is in place for a fixed period before review.

If anyone wants a full explanation of a) why room rents are increasing or b) how the increase was calculated then please get in contact with me.