Issue - meetings

To consider the recommendation from the Corporate Policy Committee. 

To consider the updated policy.  

The committee considered the report which sought approval for a new Fees and Charges Policy to replace the Council’s Charging and Trading Strategy from 2017. In presenting the report to the committee a minor amendment to the original officer recommendation (2) was highlighted and it was clarified that recommendation 2 should read as follows:

1. Recommend the proposed changes (as set out in paragraph 7 of the report) to the Council’s Finance and Contract Procedure Rules to the next Full Council meeting.

Members noted that the existing policy was outdated and did not reflect current practice or best practice across other Councils. The proposed policy introduced a consistent corporate approach to setting fees and charges, based on the principle of full cost recovery, annual inflationary uplifts, and benchmarking against other authorities.

It was noted that the new policy aligned with the Council’s Medium-Term Financial Strategy and would support financial sustainability by maximising income and reducing reliance on council tax subsidies. It also set out governance arrangements for approving deviations from the policy. Members were advised that the policy would apply to discretionary services and certain statutory services where charges were locally determined, but would not apply to Council Tax, Business Rates, or nationally set fees.

The committee noted that the policy had not been updated for eight years and sought assurance that this would not lead to any legal challenge of past decisions. It was clarified that no decisions had been made that breached the Contract and Finance Procedure Rules set out within the Council’s Constitution. The S151 and Head of Democratic Services confirmed that work undertaken on revising the policy and the Finance and Contract Procedure Rules would be done alongside the anticipated change of Council governance arrangements in May 2026 to a Leader/Cabinet model, and that this would ensure that such policies were regularly reviewed and considered by the appropriate decision-making body.

RESOLVED (unanimously):

That the Corporate Policy Committee

1. Approve the new Fees and Charges Policy as at Annex 1.

2. Recommend the proposed changes (as set out in paragraph 7 of the report) to the Council’s Finance and Contract Procedure Rules to the next Full Council meeting.