Transcript

Transcript

[BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] . Okay, I'm going to proceed. This is cabinet portfolio holder resources in session, Monday the 3rd of June 2024. Are there any apologies, please? None received, cabinet member. Thank you. Therefore, go to item two, declarations of precuniary or conflicting interest from members to receive declarations of interest from members in accordance with the code of conduct. Members are directed to the guidance sheet, which is attached in the papers. Councillor Shevata, good to see you. Thank you. I have no, I have no declarations to make. Councillor Shevata, do you have any declarations to make? No, I think I've already mentioned this sometime back, and I'll also ask this question to my colleague, but I'll raise it again. I'm one of the tenant of Solihull Council at Enterprise Centre in Champsley Wood, as a business tenant. I just want to- You have a business there, do you? Yes, yeah. Fine, OK. OK, do we have any questions or deputations? None received, cabinet member. None received. OK, we have one substantive item on the agenda this evening, and that is the debt monitoring report, year end position 2324, pages 5 to 18 in the papers. And this is to give the cabinet member for resources a higher level view of all debts owed to the Council and the action taken to recover these as of the 31st of March 2024. This includes the debts we have been unable to recover and need to be written off. I would point out that an element of this report is in private and we therefore cannot discuss that element within the open session that's being viewed by the general public. That will be left subject to an exclusion of the present public at the appropriate time. I'll turn to the report at page 5. Louise, are you doing this report? Is that you are? I am, yeah, Joe is still off. I'll hand over to you then for the important one. I've been briefed. I don't know where the Council's session has been briefed, but I've been briefed, but I'll hand over to you. Thank you. Take any questions at the end if you have any then. Certainly just at the high level points from the report, it details our collection for 23/24. And sort of any debts that are outstanding at the end of the year, we are still taking recovery action. This is just a bit of point in time on the 31st of March. So our Council tax collection was 97.25% in year, and that is slightly behind compared to the previous year. We talked about sort of previous sessions, the cost of living pressures. We did have some temporary discretionary funding that we had from the government, and we were able to support families most in need using that. So anyone who received Council tax reduction, they got £25 automatically off their bill if they made a claim. But then any money we had left over, we were able to distribute to families whether they were or weren't in receipt of Council tax reduction. Just a point to note with the Council tax, the debit increased by 8.5 million for Council tax in 23/24 compared to the previous year. And in the report, I've just detailed performance compared to those in the West Midlands, so Solheil is still performing in line. And yes, there's a different demographic, but it gives you an indication on what the collection rates were for other local authorities. Business rate collection that at the end of the year was 96.82, and again, that was behind by 0.66%, and that's 766,000. But we raised some very large business rate bills in the last few months of the year. And especially in March, we could say, well, if it's going to affect the collection, we'll leave it till April, but that's not in the Council's favour. The bill should be raised in the year that we had the changes from the evaluation office who give us the rateable value. So when we have a short period of time, sometimes due to instalments or a lack of instalments, then it's difficult to collect because we just don't have the time. But I've checked the five largest accounts where amendments were done in March, and we've either collected it or are in the process of trying to collect it through recovery notices. Sundry income collection was 87.07, which is 3.38 ahead compared to the previous financial year. Housing benefit overpayments, again, that was 11.54 ahead and still comfortably ahead of our target. And the rent collection was slightly behind, and again, they've been impacted by the cost of living. And there are more tenants in arrears, so that's really a summary of the report. If anyone has any questions? Thank you. A couple of points from me. Obviously, the comparison with our other local authorities was showing a 97.25 collection rate overall, which I think is pretty good on Council tax as opposed to others. I won't mention if they are. The sundry income, I think some work being done on sundry income, which I know we asked for, and I know certainly one area that's with regards to adult social care, the cabinet member equally has had some input into focusing on some of the increase actually sundry income, which I think is commendable and I think it is quite good. I mean, the other thing we need to note is that some of the rights we're going to be asked for are not necessarily within year. They can be quite historical, so I think although there's a figure there, that needs to be understood. The other points on rent collection, I get that. Business rates, I fully understand that, and we have discussed business rates in the past, so I'm content with the report as it stands at this point in time, but I'll pass over to either of my two colleagues. Welcome, Councillor Adeyemo. They're good to see you. Do either of you wish to raise any issues? Can I go first? Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I was just going to quickly talk about, thank you very much, Councillor. 3.19 was about the business rates. I understand obviously there is a little bit of progress, sorry, 0.6 is behind last year, but there was this line, Cashmere Eye, which says pre-COVID it was 98%, so are we, anytime sooner, are the measures in place to achieve that target, and what's actually causing not to get back to the pre-COVID levels? Well, it's really for the reasons I explained. So I suppose the pre-COVID is historically what we've been able to collect, but we were on target to collect at least in line with the year before, but these large assessments came in, and that's kind of the issue with business rates. It can be volatile. You can have a, if a large assessment comes in, we've got the air court, the Land Rover, they have changes as well in their rateable values because of things that happen within the year. So I think that there's no immediate plan to review the pre-COVID target, but certainly we would aim to collect the 98% well within this financial year because some ratepayers had the bills later on in the year and were still taking action to recover debts that weren't paid in '23/'24. I mean there was also a point in the previous report that a number of properties had actually gone into refurbishments, and as I understand it, that meant that they wouldn't be liable for business rate if I'm incorrect, perhaps you correct me, but that's my understanding. So that was in one of the previous reports in the last civic year. So can I suggest you want to come back? Yeah, that pretty much explains, and thank you for that information, and a good thing to see in 3.16 is actually still continuing to perform in a good percentage in comparison with the neighbouring councils, and again echoing what my councillor said, the rent collections and housing benefits overpayments are something that we can understand. So I'm pretty much okay with everything else. Thank you. Well thank you for that, that's very good of you. Yeah, Councillor Adeyemo, do you want to come in? Thank you chair, and apologies for being late, I was in the council offices handing in certain papers. My question really is about table 3.6 and just the size of the rent. Sorry if I've missed sort of your explanation, I think it was just that really, it's just the size of it. Those are the debts the section 151 officer can agree under the delegation, so those are small sums under £10,000, but yeah okay an explanation would be helpful fine. Perhaps something just explain how that works. So this is for the debts that were approved for write-off through the whole of the year. That's not an area I directly oversee, but you know every, as we find that debts aren't collectible, it will be put forward. That's a, you know, it's a comparable amount to previous years, and what they will do is similar to what we do, you know, they will do sort of debt chasing, taking court action where needed. If a tenant absconds they'll use credit reference checks to find out new addresses, so it's only really put forward for write-off when there's no other options, and obviously if the tenant's still in the property there'll be some communication with them. Yeah I think it was just the, you know, rents and charges, it was just the value that stuck out, because it's much higher than every other area. I suppose in the table below that at meetings in 23/24 there are other amounts that sort of are significant values that are over £10,000, but they're on individual cases, so overall it's, you know, yes it's still a large amount, but it's because they were individually under £10,000. Wow okay, okay, I was just wanting to understand, because it's obviously a large figure to have to write off, but yeah thank you very much. No that's fine, thank you. So is everyone content? We'll go to the recommendations. The current member for resources is asked to note the current value outstanding debt for council of SAC's business rates, sundry income and overpaid housing benefits as of the 31st of March 2024, and I think we've all recognised that. So now at the current level of debt on the housing revenue account, tenants of leaseholder balances which are managed by SCH on behalf of the council, and again to note the approval by the head of income and awards, that's the Deputy Section 151 Officer and Director of Resources, the write-off for those account balances which are deemed to be irrecoverable or non-refundable, those are the ones that are delegated under £10,000, and to approve the write-off of business rates and sundry income debts over £10,000 totalling £93,788. Is that right? I've got that right. I'm reading it right, the figure. £93,788. Yeah that's in the next part of the agenda. Yeah and we'll deal with those in the private session. So I'm prepared to accept all of those. I will open it back with my colleagues once we go into private if they so wish on any particular matter that's within those tables. On that basis I approve the recommendations and notes. I therefore exclude the press and the public. The meeting is not likely to be open to the public during discussion of the following items because the report contains exempt information as defined in Schedule 12a of the Local Governance Act 1972. So could I ask that we take the stream off please? Yes I'm just looking at that now. [BLANK_AUDIO]