Issue - meetings

(Cabinet Member with Special Responsibility Councillor Bryning)

Report of Chief Officer (Resources)

(Cabinet Member with Special Responsibility Councillor Bryning)

Cabinet received a report from the Chief Officer (Resources) to consider the annual review of fees and charges for 2015/16.

The options, options analysis, including risk assessment and officer preferred option, were set out in the report as follows:

The Council’s general fees and charges policy was last considered by Cabinet a year ago and in broad terms, the main principles are still considered relevant.  During the last year, however, the Authority has adopted new Financial Regulations and also the Scheme of Delegations to Officers has been updated.  The Fees and Charges Policy required updating to reflect these governance changes and the new draft is included at Appendix A to the report for Cabinet’s endorsement.

                      Chief Officers have reviewed the fees and charges within their service areas, together with any associated concessions, and any proposals that differ to the general policy principles outlined in the report, or are otherwise outside of the budget, are set out for consideration in the later sections of the report.

Where fees and charges are to change in line with policy and/or the budget, these will be amended through existing Officer delegations and therefore no Cabinet decision is required and so no detail is provided within the report, unless any unusual circumstances justify otherwise.  It should be noted that in exercising their delegated authority, Officers may well consider groupings of charges for similar or related activities and within those groupings, they may vary individual fees (or concessions) above or below inflation, for example but as long as in totality, it is reasonable to assume that the relevant income budget will be met and the variances do not go against any other aspect of policy, then no Cabinet decision is required.

Should Cabinet support any options contained later in the report that do not meet the draft budget assumptions, then they would need to go forward as growth, for consideration as part of Council’s budget proposals.  However, Members should be aware that in some instances the timescales for gaining Council approval may cause operational difficulties for implementing any new charges by 1st April 2015, taking account of any statutory notice periods required.

ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES

Car Parking

This is the only area in which a number of options are presented and therefore for clarity, full information is included in Appendix C to the report. 

Option 1A: Increase a range of charges to achieve the budget figure

This could be achieved by either a £0.10 increase on the 1hr short stay tariff or by a range of increases across less sensitive tariffs.