Agenda item

Minutes:

Members gave consideration to a report detailing the proposed fees and charges to be implemented from the 1April 2022. Members were advised that the appendices to the report provided service specific detail around performance, future demand and the rationale behind the proposed fee for next year. Consideration had been given to total cost recovery, benchmarking data, and team manager knowledge of the market when proposing fees, in line with the fees, charges and concessions policy. In addition, during this years’ budget consultation exercise, nearly two thirds of respondents felt that the council should only increase fees by inflation this year, to then review again next year. It was confirmed that, in the vast majority of cases, this was the increase that had been applied. The percentage would appear higher than inflation in the schedules where the fee had been rounded up to the nearest pound or 50p. Inflation had been applied as at June’s RPI rate of 3.9% for 2022/23, then 2% thereafter. Where no increase had been proposed, or an increase above inflation, the reasoning for this was contained within the report. In the majority of cases, the non-statutory fees had 2% inflation already built into the MTFP from 2022/23, therefore the impact of an inflationary increase was minimal. The budget implications included in the report for information, reflected both the impact of proposed amendments to fees, and the forecast demand over the period of the MTFP.

 

The net impact of the Fees and Charges review for the Prosperous Communities Committee was an increase in income of £1,600 in 22/23, , rising to £107,700 in 26/27. The significant increase in the fifth year related to forecast demand for planning fee applications.

 

Of the 59% of fees which were non-statutory – those with significant budget implications were:

 

·         Car parking fees – where no amendment was proposed at this time,  pending the strategy due later in the civic year

·         Building control – it was proposed to keep the hourly rate at the same level currently charged, as this brought West Lindsey District Council in line with other local authorities

·         Land charges – inflation had been applied at 3.9%

·         Planning pre-application advice – inflation had been applied at 3.9%

 

Members were advised that there had been an amendment to the narrative within the fees schedule for Cemeteries (included both in Appendix 2 and the new fee listed at 3.8) in relation to the interment of children. It had been amended to read ‘Single grave (3 - 17years)’ and a line had been added to state that there would be no charge up to 3 years.

 

In response to a prior query regarding the section 17 paragraph which stated the belief that charges for the bulky waste service may impact on fly tipping, it was noted that this appeared to be out of date based on the findings of the separate bulky waste report presented to the Committee earlier in the meeting and that reference would be removed.

 

It was noted that Members were asked to consider the proposed fees and charges, and to make recommendation to the Corporate Policy and Resources Committee for approval.

 

A Member of the Committee enquired as to whether there was any conflict of interest as a Town Councillor, considering the Town Council owned cemeteries. It was confirmed that as he was no more affected than any other individual, there was no declarable interest.

 

The Chairman thanked the Business Support Team Leader for her detailed summary of the report and, having been moved and seconded it was

 

RESOLVED that the proposed fees and charges for 2022/2023 be recommended to the Corporate Policy and Resources Committee for approval.

 

Supporting documents: