Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Councillor Parsons

The following apologies were received from Members:

Councillor Parsons, substituted by Councillor I. Gregory;

Councillor Bambridge, substituted by Councillor Taylor-Smith.

There were no declarations of interest received at the meeting.

In introducing the item for debate, Tim Willis, Director of Corporate Resources & S151 Officer said that the report before the Panel was the same as the one that was considered and adopted by Cabinet on 19 January 2016. He requested Members to note that Table 1 (External Funding) should be denoted in ‘£thousands’ and not ‘£millions.’ An additional recommendation on second homes discounts and empty properties exemptions for Council tax would be included in the report to go to Council on 4 February 2016 as these were Council functions rather than Cabinet.

As a prelude to presenting the budget to Cabinet a number of briefings had been held for Members to inform Members about the budget process and framework to be used to set the 2016/17 Council budget. The economic and financial environment in which the budget was being set was challenging. It was important that in making recommendations to Full Council on the budget proposals to adopt, reliable funding sources be identified.

Government Funding and Council Tax

Tim Willis advised that if the Council collected more Council Tax that it budgeted for then there would be a surplus. TDC would be entitled to keep its share of that surplus. Tim Willis confirmed that TDC was not planning to share its element of any surplus with town or parish councils; however it was up to Members to decide how the surplus would be spent. Matt Sanham, Financial Services Manager said that the expected surplus share to Council for 2016/17 was £163,000.

Medium Term Financial Plan

One Member asked whether there had been any indication on how the change to the collection business rates would work and whether the Government had made any contingency measures for disadvantaged areas like Thanet District where business growth was small. In response Tim Willis said that the situation was still not clear. However current information at hand was that Local Government would retain all of the business rates collected.

Another Member said that the challenge was that some of the more affluent councils could reduce the business rates levels in their areas and this may lead to businesses moving away from Thanet to those areas with reduced rates.

Budget Savings

The meeting was advised that officers would be providing information on the events budgets due to town and parish councils outside of the meeting. The Chairman said that it was important that town and parish councils be made aware early on of the levels of floral display and events grants they would be receiving in order for them to decide on what match funding levels would be required. Tim Willis indicated that officers would be advising Members as soon as was possible.

Rental Increases

Addressing the question on how much was being collected as result of the Pay to Stay Policy, Nikki Walker, Interim Head of Financial Services said that the initial government guidance indicated that this would be a discretionary rent policy for tenants whose household earnings were more than £60,000 per year. Additional  ...  view the full minutes text for item 41.