Issue - meetings

Members heard from the Financial Services Manager regarding the proposed fees and charges to be implemented from 1 April 2026, for services within the committee. The budget implications reflected both the impact of proposed amendments to fees, and the forecast demand for each service. It was explained that 41% of the charge lines were statutory and were published once they were released by the relevant body. Officer were still awaiting the release of the statutory planning fees, which had been received in late November the previous year. They were based on the September CPI rate which was confirmed recently as being unchanged from August at 3.8%.

The remaining 59% of charge lines were non-statutory and were locally set by the Council. For each service provided, the aim was for total cost recovery where possible however benchmarking data was taken into consideration as well as the budget manager’s knowledge of the market and demand. It was highlighted that the main cost driver for the majority of chargeable services was staff time, therefore the pay award increase of 3.2% had been applied as the inflationary uplift for 26/27. From 27/28 2.5% had been applied each year.

Members were advised that in relation to non-statutory fees, 39% had seen no proposed change, this primarily related to markets and car parks. With regard to car parks (section 4.2 of the report), it was noted that a revised car park strategy was imminent so no amendments to fees were proposed at this time. With regard to Markets (section 4.8 of the report), trader numbers were being maintained and so there were no proposed increases at this stage. There was, however, a proposed fee reduction for Tuesday fees for vans and trailers to encourage more traders. There was no stall erection required for those traders and so it had been deemed appropriate to reduce the fees to be more in line with market stall fees.

The Financial Services Manager explained that, in relation to garden waste fees, there were three options for the 26/27 subscription fee proposed for Member consideration, all of which were based on the current 18 collections per year. The first options was to maintain the annual fee at £46, which forecast a £26,000 shortfall in cost recovery. Option two was to increase the fee to £47, which forecast a £24.7k shortfall, and option three, being the preferred option, was an increase to £48 (which was a £2 or 4.3% increase on the current year), which represented cost recovery for the service. This reflected the increase in staff costs, vehicle costs, and also a risk adjustment for a 2% reduction in subscribers.

Members heard that 60% of the remaining non statutory fees were proposed to increase, the majority of which were based on an increase of 3.2% rounded to the nearest £ or 50p. The total impact on the MTFP had been updated to include the expected increase in planning fees and was an increase in income of £81.5k in 26/27, rising to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 22