Issue details

To apply an in-year increase to the Fees & Charges contained within the appended Schedule. This is a continuation of the previous decision submitted in December 2022 and is Tranche 2 of Fees & Charges

The Quarter 2 Corporate Financial Monitoring Report approved by Cabinet on 16 November 2022 sets out the Council’s financial position in light of the current challenging economic climate, and highlights management actions to be progressed, which include a review of all services’ Fees and Charges, in response to that. The prevailing rate of CPI at the time this review was completed in December 2022, was 11.1%

All Services across the council are therefore undertaking an immediate review of their existing Fees & Charges, to establish:

·         those fees and charges which can be increased in-year, due to exceptional inflationary pressures, by 11.1%

·         products or services provided by the council which are non-statutory, and should, if not already, apply increases above 11.1% to move towards becoming fully cost recoverable

·         products or services provided by the council which are non-statutory and already fully cost-recoverable, but where market forces are in operation, and where price benchmarking indicates there is headroom for price increases above 11.1%

Appended to this Decision Notice is a Schedule of Fees and Charges with the Environment and Climate Change and Growth & Regeneration Directorate where one or more of the above criteria apply. In addition, the Schedule also includes some in-year Fees & Charges which are less than 11.1% where other market factors may apply.

The officer decision to implement the increases set out in the attached Schedule is made on this date in accordance with Section 11.1 of the Financial Procedure Rules Scheme of Delegation, so as to facilitate in-year increases, wherever possible with effect from 1 April, at the earliest.

However for some services, the actual implementation date may be later than 1 April, subject to IT update constraints or other administrative actions which are needed to effect a price change, or where engagement with customers/users is required prior to the increase