Agenda item

The Leader of the Council provided the Council with an update of business discussed by the Cabinet at its meeting held on 17 December 2014 (for copy see file of Minutes).

Councillor M Wilkes referred to Items 1 (MTFP) and 3 (Welfare Reform and Poverty Issues) of the Cabinet report which included a saving of £85,235 at RES22 and expressed concern about this being in the MTFP and its impact on poverty issues.

Councillor Napier, Cabinet Portfolio Holder for Finance replied that the £85,000 saving would be realised by increasing court fees for council tax and business rates by £5 in 2015/16 to £90, which was £50 for the summons and £40 for liability orders which were awarded by the Magistrates Court at the court hearing.  The £90 bill for court costs would still be in line with what other council’s in the region charged.

The Council’s Debt Management Strategy deliberately placed emphasis on supporting people who ‘couldn’t pay’ and the Council had a number of measures in place to support residents and businesses experiencing financial difficulties.

The recovery processes the Council had in place included prompt early warning reminder letters to those that defaulted, before the court action stage and in addition to offering a wide variety of payment methods the Council always encouraged those that fell into arrears to contact the Council so that financial circumstances could be discussed and payment arrangements agreed where possible.  The Council also offered help with benefit applications where these may be eligible.

The Council’s decision to retain 100% council tax reduction to help support low income council tax payers in line with the national Council Tax Benefit system, plus its work on Discretionary Housing Payments to help those affected by the bedroom tax and support through the Welfare Assistance Scheme and the use of Hardship Relief Policy were examples of policies and processes the Council used to help support those council tax payers who were genuinely struggling to pay whilst maintaining a focus on those that could usually afford to pay but waited to receive a summons before paying.

The majority of tax payers paid their bills on time.  Unfortunately, a minority didn’t and it was those the Council needed to take recovery action against, otherwise their bills would not get paid.

There was always a balance to be struck between focussed and efficient recovery processes and impact on poverty.  Clearly, the most financially disadvantaged households would invariably be in receipt of benefits and Council Tax Support and through the work of the Council’s Welfare Rights Service the Council continued to promote take up and ensure people received what they were entitled to.

The additional revenue from increasing court cost fee income was being carefully monitored and would be taken into account in the expected financial outturn performance for 2014/15 to see whether the proposed MTFP saving could be accommodated from over-achievement for the existing budget or whether the £5 increase was needed to bring the 2015/16 budget into balance.

Councillor Wilkes referred to Item 4 of the Cabinet, Review of Current Policy on 20 mph Zones and Limits.  He considered the report which was considered by Cabinet to be flawed due to it omitting 4 colleges, and Councillor J Armstrong had agreed that a Scrutiny Working Group would investigate the methodology used in formulating the Policy.  Councillor B Stephens, Cabinet Portfolio Holder for Neighbourhoods and Local Partnerships replied that he had nothing to add to the report which was considered by Cabinet and Scrutiny had been asked to consider this report.