Agenda item

Report by the Head of Resources to the Strategy and Resources Committee on 3^rd February 2020 (attached).

(a)  Minute Extract of the Strategy and Resources Committee held on 3^rd February 2020 (attached).

The Committee considered a report to the Strategy and Resources Committee on 3^rd February 2020 by the Head of Resources together with a minute extract (circulated previously) regarding the review of Charges and Fees for services for 2020/21.

·         This year the guidance was to increase some fees and charges by 3%, although some fees were set by statute and these would be set nationally. Other variations to the 3% increase were set out in 4.3 to 4.8.

·         Building Control fees had been set to recoup the cost of providing the services. It was recommended by the Joint Building Control partnership to keep the fees at the 2019/20 levels, which was detailed in appendix B of the report.

·         Trade Waste had reviewed the Holiday homes packages and removed packages 1 and 3, replacing the weekly collections with fortnightly collections for holiday homes, which was detailed in appendix C of the report.

·         Land Charges fees had been set to recoup the cost of providing the service, without changing the current fees the land charges service was still budgeted to recover all the costs and break even, as detailed in appendix D.

·         There were minimal changes to the Environmental Health fees, as the majority of these were set by statue or set to recover costs. The changes included amendments to the Dangerous Wild Animals, Zoo and residential caravan site licence fees.

·         Although the Pannier Market fees had recommended to be increased by 3% it was proposed that the additional £5,000 received was earmarked to be spent on the Pannier Market.

·         Garden waste charges had not had an increase for 3 years and it proposed not to increase the fees for the fourth year running.

·         The net changes in the charges were expected to result in £28,250 of additional income, which had been included within the draft 2020/21 budget.

In response to question regarding charges applied by the Council for bulky waste collections and whether exceptions could be made in certain circumstances to avoid an increase in fly tipping, the Head of Resources confirmed that the service used to be provided by the Council free of charge. He added that whilst exceptions to the charges were not provided at the current time, it was possible to explore the possibility in the future.

RESOLVED, that the decisions and recommendations of the Strategy and Resources Committee be endorsed.