Issue - meetings

Councillor Yates, Cabinet Member for Finance, Administration and Community Wealth Building proposed, and the Leader seconded the recommendation from the report, namely:

‘That Council approves the fees and charges as listed in Annexes 1 and 2.’

In accordance with council procedure rule 17.6, a recorded vote was conducted by the Deputy Monitoring Officer on the motion as follows:

39 Members voted in favour of the motion: Councillors Albon, Ara, Ashbee, Bailey, J Bayford, R Bayford, Braidwood, Campbell, Coleman-Cooke, Crittenden, Currie, Dennis, Duckworth, Everitt, Farrance, Garner, Gregory, Hopkinson, Huxley, Keen, Kup, Pat Moore, Paul Moore, Ovenden, Parsons, L Piper, Rev. S Piper, Potts, Pugh, Rawf, Roper, D Saunders, M Saunders, Savage, Scobie, Tomlinson, Whitehead, Wing, and Yates.

Five Members voted against the motion: Councillors Day, Game, Hart, Rattigan, and Shrubb.

Nine Members abstained from voting on the motion: Councillors Bambridge, Boyd, Dexter, Fellows, Rogers, Rusiecki, Scott, Towning, and Wright. 

The motion was carried.

Tim Willis, Deputy Chief Executive & S151 Officer introduced the report and said that Cabinet had agreed the proposals which they recommended to Full Council.

Members asked questions and made comments as follows:

• There should have been a significant increase in fines for unauthorised depositing of waste to deter would be offenders;
• Why was there an expectation that there would be less collection of enforcement revenue in 2021/22 in comparison to 2020/21?
• Why was there a parking charge for the car park (in Westbrooke Avenue) in Westgate-on-Sea?
• There should be greater enforcement to deter fly tipping particularly in problem areas in the district that included Cliftonville;
• In previous years the Council had agreed not to charge cremation fees on bereaving families if it involved child deaths. Why was the charge being imposed?
• Why was there free parking for Mill Lane and St Peters car parks during winter as this facility should only be offered in summer to boost tourist visitor and related business activity in the high street and sea front?
• What confidence did officers have that the current fees and charges figures would be achieved this financial year?
• The projections for planning fees and building control fees would be difficult to achieve in the new financial year.

Mr Willis, Councillor Yates, Cabinet Member for Finance, Administration and Community Wealth Building and Councillor Albon, Cabinet Member for Operational Services responded to Member queries as follows:

• Council had received a number of complaints from ward councillors and residents about motorists using the Barnes Avenue car park for non parking matters that included overnight stays;
• Bereaved families would not be asked to pay the cremation fee as this would be paid for through a government grant. The council would do all the processing and filling in of forms involved in accessing this grant and if the policy changed in the future, there would be no charges to be imposed on bereaved families;
• The issue regarding free parking in Mill Lane and St Peters car parks might be a historical matter which officers would look into and address;
• Officers were not as confident as would normally be the case about achieving the projected fees and charges totals for 2020/21 due to the impact of Covid-19. The pandemic was making it difficult to come up with an accurate estimate;
• The council was anticipating a £100k shortfall in Planning Applications income this year. There would be a negative impact to Building Control income as well. These observations had been reported to Cabinet and Council.

Thereafter the Panel noted the report. This meant that the recommendations made by Cabinet on 19 November would be forwarded to Full Council for final decision on 10 December 2020.

Cabinet reviewed fees and charges proposals as part of the 2021-22 budget setting process. The proposed fees and charges are expected to generate additional income of around £200K, which represented an average increase of 2.0%. This excluded items such as Selective Licensing, On Street Parking and specific growth items which would be covered elsewhere in the budget.

In setting out these proposals, consideration was given to the budget strategy that Members had discussed and agreed earlier on in the meeting. The starting position would be to increase all fees and charges by at least 2% and all fees and charges income budgets by 2%. Members agreed that the only exceptions to this will be:

·  Where individual charges cannot rise by 2%, e.g. individual car parking charges, but the service (in this example, parking) will still need to generate at least 2% increase overall.

·  Where a service is being fundamentally reviewed as part of a review of its fees and charges income shortfall.

The assumption held was that all services (e.g. building control) that identified a significant projected shortfall last year and this year, would take action to eliminate the shortfall. This might be by increasing charges by more than 2% if the market would tolerate it; or by restructuring charges; or by fundamentally reviewing the service. This would enable the overall budget strategy to presume no additional burden from historic income shortfalls.It was anticipated that this would generate approximately £200k of income for the council.

Councillor Yates proposed, Councillor Everitt seconded and Cabinet:

1.  Considered and made comment on the proposed 2021-22 fees and charges schedule, as listed in Annex 1;

2.  Recommended the proposed 2021-22 fees and charges to Full Council for approval.