Agenda item

To consider the recommendations from the meeting of the Cabinet held on 17^th January 2024.

 

Any recommendations from meeting will be published in a Supplementary Papers pack to this agenda.

Recommendations from the meeting of the Cabinet held on 17^th January 2024 were presented for the Council’s consideration.

 

Planning Enforcement Policy

 

Councillor K. Taylor presented the updated Planning Enforcement Policy for consideration by the Council and recommended its endorsement.  Councillor H. Jones seconded the recommendation.

 

Councillor A. Bailes suggested that advice to enforcement officers about what would be appropriate and proportionate in enforcement should be included in the policy.  He commented that the Council should be open and transparent when it was taking enforcement action in order to ensure the trust of the public.  He also suggested that any review of the enforcement policy should be presented to the Planning Committee.  Councillor Taylor responded that as some enforcement action was sensitive it would not be appropriate to discuss cases in public, but Councillor Bailes’ concerns would be raised with the Head of Planning.

 

In response to a query about whether biodiversity should be included in the Policy, Councillor Taylor reported that 89% of the district was green belt and policies to safeguard this were maintained robustly.

 

A member suggested that some wording in the policy should be reviewed, for example reference to ‘trivial’, because of the impact that enforcement action could have on the public.  Councillor Taylor undertook to discuss this with officers.

 

RESOLVED that the Council’s Planning Enforcement Policy be endorsed.

 

Council Tax Discretionary Council Tax Reduction Policy – Council Section 13a(C) Policy

 

Councillor C. Hotham presented the draft Council Tax Discretionary Council Tax Reduction Policy for the award of section 13A(1)(C) reductions in Council tax.  The Council’s policy had not been reviewed for several years; amendments to the policy would ensure that the delegation to provide discounts in line with any future national schemes were in place and enable support to be provided speedily to any qualifying households.

 

Further to reference in the Policy to the flood recovery framework, a member asked about support for victims of flooding and actions undertaken by the Council to prevent future flooding.  Councillor Hotham gave details of the financial help available and proactive work undertaken by the Council in flood prevention.

 

The recommendations were proposed by Councillor C. Hotham and seconded by Councillor S. Baxter.

 

RESOLVEDthat

 

1)    The Section 13A(1)(C) policy be approved and adopted from 1^st April 2024.

2)    The Council’s scheme of delegation be amended to grant delegated authority to the Head of Finance and Customer Services, and the Financial Support Manager to reduce the Council Tax payable on a case by case basis, as provided by Section 13A 1 (c) of the Local Government Finance Act 1992.

 

 

Council Tax – Empty Homes Discount and Premiums

 

Councillor C. Hotham reported that since the introduction of Council Tax in 1993 some properties had been eligible for council tax discounts, the levels of which had been varied by legislation.  Until 2004, dwellings which were unoccupied were eligible for a council tax discount of 50%.  Since then, amendments to legislation had given billing authorities the power to reduce or remove the discount for unoccupied dwellings and in the case of long-term empty homes, to impose a council tax premium. 

 

The Levelling Up and Regeneration Act had introduced further changes to the discount and premiums for unoccupied homes.  The main changes were that the period for which a dwelling must be vacant before it was classed as a long-term empty dwelling had been reduced from 2 to 1 year.  The billing authority had also been given powers to apply a premium of up to 100% for any dwellings that were furnished and had no residents.

 

The Council currently applied the full premium to all long-term empty homes on the basis that a dwelling would be subject to the premium if vacant for 2 years or more. The amendment to the legislation would mean that from 1st April 2024 the premium would be applied to all dwellings that had been vacant for 12 months or more.

 

Councillor M. Marshall enquired whether the scheme could apply to commercial premises.  Councillor Hotham responded that business rates might have to continue to be paid but he would enquire about the potential. 

 

In response to a query from Councillor D. Hopkins, Councillor Hotham undertook to find the definition of ‘substantially unfurnished’ and forward it to him.  

 

The recommendations were proposed by Councillor C. Hotham and seconded by Councillor S. Baxter.

 

RESOLVEDthat

 

1)    From 1st April 2024, under section 11B(1) of the local government finance act 1992, for long-term empty dwellings the discount under section 11(2)(a) will not apply and the additional council tax premium applied will be:

 

i)                 For a dwelling that has been unoccupied and substantially unfurnished for less than 5 years – 100% premium.

ii)               For a dwelling that has been unoccupied and substantially unfurnished for 5 years or more, but less than 10 years – 200% premium.

iii)              For a dwelling that has been unoccupied and substantially unfurnished for 10 years or more – 300% premium.

 

2)    The Head of Financial and Customer Services on a case-by-case basis may consider a reduction to the long-term empty premium under section 13A(1)(C) of the Local Government Finance Act 1992.

 

Final Council Tax Support Scheme 2024-2025

 

The Council was required by section 13A(2) of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 (LGFA ’92) to make a council tax reduction (CTR) scheme specifying the reductions in council tax that would be provided to people who were in financial need, or to classes of people who were in general in financial need.  Council was required to review its scheme each year.

 

Councillor C. Hotham proposed the recommendation to retain the scheme and uprate the income bands.  This was seconded by Councillor S. Baxter.

 

RESOLVED that the Council Tax Reduction Scheme is retained for 2024-25 tax year, subject to uprating of income bands by 6.7% as set out in the table at appendix a to the report.

 

Planning and Environmental Enforcement Business Case

 

The Deputy Leader, Councillor S. Baxter, presented a report which outlined a Business Case for the enforcement activity across all services of Bromsgrove and Redditch Councils, including shared services. The objectives of the business case were to target enforcement using an intelligence led approach with proportionate use of resources and improved service standards. Recognising the risk to the authorities in getting enforcement wrong, both reputationally and financially, the business case sought to deliver a strong service with efficiencies.

 

The Business case had examined 4 options:

·       Continuing with the current arrangements

·       Grouping the enforcement roles into one team within the Councils

·       Grouping enforcement with WRS, and

·       Full triaging with the ability to resolve issues at first point of contact.

 

The last scenario was identified as the most appropriate.

 

The Business Case identified the level of resource to be transferred to WRS to meet demand for planning enforcement – a transfer of the current budget.  The current backlog of cases had been considered, and additional resource provided in the Business Case to reduce the backlog and consequent delays.

As the customer services element for Environmental Services was across various roles and not easily extracted from service budgets, additional investment was identified to support triaging.  In recognition of the public concerns about dog fouling, fly tipping and littering the Business Case emphasised proactive engagement and promotion of responsible behaviours.

 

Councillor Baxter proposed the recommendations, and these were seconded by Councillor P. Whittaker.

 

During the debate the following points were made:

 

·       The view was expressed that moving the planning enforcement function to WRS risked the integrity of the end-to-end process and there should have been investment in the in-house service.  The Acting Chief Executive clarified that WRS was a shared service across the District Councils in Worcestershire and Bromsgrove District Council was the host employer

·       In response to a question, Councillor Baxter confirmed that Redditch Borough Council supported the proposals.  The £93,600 cost was from the current budget for the planning enforcement service.  If Council agreed the other recommendations, then the financial implications would form part of tranche 2 of the budget process

·       It was noted that data about envirocrime was available in performance monitoring reports

·       The view was expressed that it might be difficult to recruit to the proposed 2-year fixed term contracts.   Councillor Baxter replied that an advantage of a larger service was that there would be more opportunity to progress and use transferable skills across the different disciplines.

 

RESOLVED that

 

1)          The Business case be pursued with the intention to bring together the enforcement functions within Environmental Services and Planning and associated current budget (as identified in Table 6 of Appendix 1) within the Shared Regulatory Service provided by WRS.

 

2)          An additional £93,600 annually from existing resources be agreed to fund the service to meet the level of demand in Planning Enforcement.

 

3)          An additional £55,590 be agreed to fund 1.6 FTE additional (Grade 6) resource to support the work in tackling the backlog of Planning Enforcement cases for the next two years only.

 

4)          An additional £7,537.50 be agreed to fund 0.25 FTE additional (Grade 4) resource for the customer service resource element of fly-tipping, littering and enviro-crime.

 

5)          An additional £21,650 be agreed to fund 0.5 FTE additional (Grade 6) resource to support the work on enforcement of fly-tipping, littering and enviro-crime.

 

Medium Term Financial Plan 2024-25 to 2026-27 Tranche 1

 

Councillor C. Hotham presented the Tranche 1 budget proposals and drew attention to changes in the forecast since the beginning of the financial year.  Tranche 1 reflected the position in November 2023 and the situation was now clearer following the Government’s announcement of the Local Government Settlement in late 2023.

 

No responses had been received to public consultation on Tranche 1.  Work on the Tranche 2 budget was underway. Councillor Hotham reminded the Council that the outcomes of the play audit and bus shelter proposals were agreed to be added to the budget.

 

Councillor Hotham proposed and Councillor S. Baxter seconded the recommendations.

 

In response to a question, Councillor Hotham reported that the recent Government announcement of additional funding for local government did not provide details about how this would be allocated. 

 

It was noted that because if the time lag between the item being considered by Cabinet and the Council meeting, reference in the Cabinet report to the level of the Council Tax cap was out of date and it was 3%. 

 

RESOLVED that

 

1)              The inputs into the Council’s Medium Term Financial Plan as at the start of October 2023, and the associated risks and opportunities, be endorsed.

2)              It be noted that these inputs have been used, along with the 2023/24-25/26 Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) agreed by Council in February 2023, to project an initial “gap” to be closed.

3)              An initial Tranche of savings proposals, as set out in Section 3.12 - 3.25 and the associated Savings Proposal Document in Appendix A, as published on the 14^th November and any feedback will be considered by Cabinet in January 2023 be approved

4)              Fees and charges are increased by 7% as part of this process.

5)              Commercial fees and charges, as set out in Appendix F are approved, and

6)              Tranche 2 of this process will add further information such as the Local Government Settlement to give a final financial position for the Council.