Agenda item

Purpose:To set out the draft revenue budget for 2022/23 including fees and charges and to seek approval for the draft budget and draft fees and charges schedule prior to submission to Bracknell and West Berkshire Councils in accordance with the Inter-Authority Agreement (IAA).

Sean Murphy, Public Protection Manager, introduced the report which set out the draft revenue budget for 2022/23 including fees and charges and to seek approval for the draft budget and draft fees and charges schedule prior to submission to Bracknell and West Berkshire Councils in accordance with the Inter-Authority Agreement (IAA).

The report was based on the arrangements after Wokingham leaving and an assumption of a 1.5% cost of living rise this year and 2% year after.

The report included a proposed budget increase for Environmental Health as the workload had increased in this area significantly; three additional staff posts were requested.

Since the paper was written, the government had announced a National Insurance increase. This was estimated to translate to £30,000 of funding to be included in future budgets.

The implementation of the IT system which was scheduled to go live in April 2022, should bring efficiencies for the licencing applications process and therefore the fees had been adjusted accordingly.

Over the last year, there had been an increased number of taxi liaison meetings and the team had taken on board comments such as the suggestion to absorb some training costs, which would be delivered inhouse, into the licencing costs, rather than charging extra fees.

Councillor John Porter asked for clarification on the reasoning behind the private hire fees. He had been expecting a greater reduction in fees although he was glad to see that some training would be included in the fees. It was clarified that the fees took account of the fact that the trade mostly wanted the fee to be inclusive. While the fee had not gone down significantly, there were minimal additional fees. A few were not included e.g. first aid training, as it was arranged through an external provider, but this might change in the future. Overall, it was confirmed that drivers would pay less.

Councillor Porter queried whether a similar overhaul would be carried out for street traders. It was explained that the team had not had an opportunity to have a public consultation as yet. The plan was to conduct consultations over the next year with a view to changes coming in 2023-24.

Councillor Porter pointed out that the difference between authorities in the report was significant (West Berkshire charged just under £1400 per year but Bracknell Forest charged £14000+ for 6 months). He asked if this issue could be revisited in terms of the 2022/23 fee schedule.

Sean Murphy agreed that it would be possible to have a look at these charges before they went before Licensing Committees but the higher fee for Bracknell was historically tied to the town centre arrangements; apart from that fee, the others were all roughly equivalent.

Councillor Hilary Cole queried the need for public consultation on fees. Anna Smy (Strategic Manager – Response) clarified that the consultation was regarding the policies rather than the fees themselves. It was however noted that there were statutory requirements about consulting on hackney carriage and private hire fees and these would be addressed in the reports going to the West Berkshire and Bracknell Forest Licensing Committees.

RESOLVED that:

2.1 Consideration had been given to the draft revenue budget including the fees and charges set out in the report.

2.2 the new percentage split be agreed as set out in Column 3 of the table at Paragraph 5.7 to the report.

2.3 a recommendation would be made to partner Councils that the contributions set out in paragraph 5.7 (total net revenue budget of £2.642M) be approved along with the fees and charges set out in Appendix A.

2.4 a recommendation would be made to partner Councils that they consider the growth bids identified in paragraph 5.6 below.

2.5 the policy position in relation to monies received under the Asset Recovery Incentivisation Scheme (ARIS), approved at its meeting on the 14th March 2017, remains the policy to be applied to spend / allocation of any monies received under the scheme.