Agenda item

The Executive Director of Finance and Corporate Resources presented the proposed fees and charges for 2018/19 and explained that in some cases Officers were proposing that the charges should be increased by 3.9 per cent in line with budget assumptions.  However, there were some cases where Officers were suggesting no increase to the fees or an increase over 3.9 per cent.

Members were advised that a typographical error had occurred in the report as incorrect figures had been listed for hiring mechanically swept private road / car park mini-sweepers and mechanically swept private road / car park HGV sweepers.  This should have been recorded as £30 and £50 respectively per hour rather than as £0.00 in both cases.

The proposed installation fee for lifeline services, due to increase by 38.89 per cent was discussed with concerns being raised about the potential impact on customers.  Officers advised that this increase had occurred following benchmarking with other authorities and to ensure that the service achieved full cost recovery.  Additional support could be offered to customers who might struggle to meet the costs.

The fees for Bereavement Services had also increased by up to 22.2 per cent and questions were raised about the causes of this.  The Committee was advised that these increases had occurred following a rise in the fees charged by organisations that supplied services to the Council at the Crematorium.  The fees would enable the Council to recover these costs as well as contribute to meeting administrative and maintenance costs at the site.

Fees had not been published in the papers for Building Control due to recognition of the commercially sensitive nature of these services which were provided in competition with external organisations.  A request was made for a sample of these fees to be provided in exempt papers for future editions of this report to enable Members to assess how these charges were changing, though it was acknowledged that the fees for this service could vary according to changing levels of demand within the market.

In many cases there were no proposals for there to be an increase in the fees charged for Worcestershire Regulatory Services (WRS).  Officers explained that there was a lot of case law in relation to licensing fees which specified that these fees needed to be self-financing.  When calculating Licensing fees issues such as administration costs were taken into account.  There were also a number of licensing fees that were set at a statutory level and which the Council could not amend.

Increases had also not been proposed to a number of fees for services provided by the Palace Theatre.  Officers advised that a benchmarking exercise had been undertaken and this had discovered that many of the venue’s fees were comparable to that of similar venues.  To ensure that the theatre remained competitive Officers were advising that these fees should not increase.

RECOMMENDED that

1)        all fees and charges that are included in Appendix 1 which have a proposed increase for 2018/19 over the currently agreed budget assumption of 3.9% be approved; 

RESOLVED that

2)        the fees and charges as presented in Appendix 1 that have no increase for 2018/19 be approved; and

3)        the fees and charges as presented in Appendix 1 that have reduced for 2018/19 be approved.