Issue - meetings

The Cabinet Member for Finance, Growth and Core Services introduced a report on the proposed fees and charges for Council services, the majority of which would come into effect from 1 January 2023.

The Council’s Charging Policy established that fees and charges would, in the main, be increased in line with the Consumer Price Index (at August each year).  The Cabinet Member advised, however, that with inflation at 9.9% he had asked officers to adopt a slightly different approach this year to ensure that fees and charges for 2023 were only increased by the amount necessary to ensure that the Council continued to recover its costs (including overheads) and, at the same time, recognising the additional financial pressures already faced by the local community as a consequence of the cost-of-living crisis.  That meant, for example, that services where the main cost element was staff time would only be increased by the average Local Government Pay Award rate of 6.6% and a range of service fees and charges would be frozen at 2022 levels, as had been suggested by the Council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee when it had considered the proposals on 5 October 2022.

Cabinet resolved to:

(i)  Agree the proposed fees and charges as set out in Appendix A to the report, to be effective from 1 January 2023 unless otherwise stated;

(ii)  Note the fees and charges no longer applicable from 1 January 2023, as set out in Appendix B to the report; and

(iii)  Delegate authority to the Strategic Director, Children and Adults, in consultation with the Strategic Director, Finance and Investment and the relevant Cabinet Members, to set fees and charges to be applied from September for schools and academic year-based activities.