Agenda and minutes

To provide an opportunity for Members and Officers to declare any personal and/or prejudicial interests in any item on the agenda

No interests were declared.

In accordance with Procedure Rules Nos.11 and 35 a period of 10 minutes is allocated for members of the public to address the meeting on any matter relevant to the work of the meeting. Individual members of the public may speak for up to 5 minutes but the Chairman will decide how the period of time allocated for public speaking will be apportioned where there are a number of speakers. Members of the public are not required to give notice to use this facility. However, as a matter of courtesy, a period of 24 hours’ notice is encouraged.

Members of the public wishing to ask a question at the meeting should provide three clear working days’ notice, in writing, in order for an informed answer to be given.

There were no members of the public present.

To consider a report on the Council Tax Base for Cheshire East to enable the Cabinet Member for Resources to make a recommendation to Council.

The Cabinet Member considered a report on the Council Tax Base for Cheshire East with a view to making a recommendation to Council.

In accordance with the Local Authorities (Calculation of Tax Base) Regulations 1992, Cheshire East Council was required to agree its Tax Base before 31 January 2010 so that the information could be provided to Cheshire Police Authority and Cheshire Fire Authority for their budget processes.

The Tax Base for the area was the estimated number of chargeable dwellings expressed as a number of Band D equivalents adjusted for an estimated number of discounts, exemptions, disabled relief and appeals plus an allowance for non-collection.

The Tax Base had been calculated on the assumption that properties remaining empty for longer than six months were allowed a discount of 25% and that properties regarded as second homes were allowed a discount of 25%. The number of band D equivalent properties for 2010/11 was 146,238.98.

It was necessary to further adjust the Tax Base for:

Changes in the Valuation List

These could arise for a variety of reasons such as appeals, disabled relief, new properties, deleted properties and changes in discount or exemption entitlements. Taking into account these factors, the Tax Base was expected to increase by 398.44 properties.

Non-collection

It was suggested that a reduction of 1% be made in the Tax Base to accommodate non-collection. This reduced the Tax Base by 1,466.37 to 145,171.05.

RESOLVED

That the Cabinet Member for Resources recommends to Council that, in accordance with the Local Authorities (Calculation of Tax Base) Regulations 1992, the amount to be calculated by Cheshire East Council as its Council Tax Base for the year 2010/11 is:

?       for the whole area – 145,171.05

?       for each Parish area as set out in Appendix A to the report