As announced last month, for the past few weeks I have been chairing a Fees and Charges Working Group at Central Bedfordshire Council in the Chicksands offices. We will be reporting to the Executive in October and later Full Council for approval of our recommendation which will then come in to force in April 2010. We have also been creating a policy document to cover how fees and charges should be levied and collected in the future. Once approved this will all be published on the website.
The group was selected by me to be representative with half the members from the old South and half from the old Mid Beds with 4 Conservative and 2 Liberal Democrat members.
We are covering a wide range of fees and charges including parking fees and fines, bulky waste collections, wasp nest destroying, registrar charges and even discussing housing costs and services.
It became clear that some charges had simply been increased by 3% for the past few years and we needed to ensure the charges were at actual cost recovery or lower as we are not allowed to make a profit on discretionary services. We also could not simply average the old District rates as we are one authority providing the same services to all and as each old District had very different ideas over charging this simply was not possible.
We have had senior officers explain their workload to us so we can judge how labour intensive and costly the services are and then come up with a charge that was fair but also not too low that it was putting the burden on all tax payers.
Services provided to all residents in largely the same way such as refuse and recycling collection is not allowed to be charged for so we were looking at the optional extras such as fridge and freezer removal and bulky waste collection as well.
We have at all times kept social responsibility in mind and as such many of these service subject to approval as above will still be below cost price.
I cannot say much more as nothing has yet been approved but we believe our recommendations are right for Central Bedfordshire and will ensure the Council continues to offer good services and value for money.
The group was selected by me to be representative with half the members from the old South and half from the old Mid Beds with 4 Conservative and 2 Liberal Democrat members.
We are covering a wide range of fees and charges including parking fees and fines, bulky waste collections, wasp nest destroying, registrar charges and even discussing housing costs and services.
It became clear that some charges had simply been increased by 3% for the past few years and we needed to ensure the charges were at actual cost recovery or lower as we are not allowed to make a profit on discretionary services. We also could not simply average the old District rates as we are one authority providing the same services to all and as each old District had very different ideas over charging this simply was not possible.
We have had senior officers explain their workload to us so we can judge how labour intensive and costly the services are and then come up with a charge that was fair but also not too low that it was putting the burden on all tax payers.
Services provided to all residents in largely the same way such as refuse and recycling collection is not allowed to be charged for so we were looking at the optional extras such as fridge and freezer removal and bulky waste collection as well.
We have at all times kept social responsibility in mind and as such many of these service subject to approval as above will still be below cost price.
I cannot say much more as nothing has yet been approved but we believe our recommendations are right for Central Bedfordshire and will ensure the Council continues to offer good services and value for money.
