This meeting was scheduled to include discussions of the council's Fees and Charges for 2025-26, and the Scrutiny team were also scheduled to provide the committee with an update on their work.

Fees and Charges 2025-26

The Budget Scrutiny Committee were scheduled to review proposed Fees and Charges for 2025-26. The report sets out proposed increases for discretionary Fees and Charges across all service areas, with the exception of Street Trading and Land Charges which operate as ring-fenced accounts.

Officers were scheduled to request that the committee review the information in the report and ask any questions they had. The report notes that:

Unless the Fees and Charges are set by statute, services must ensure all costs are recovered in full and are required to obtain benchmarking data to assess comparability. Where services are proposing not to increase fees, there must be justification.

A range of increases are proposed including a 10% uplift on library lettings fees, a 5% increase on all Community Alarm charges and a 4.4% increase on the maximum fees for the council's residential care homes, Alliston House, George Mason Lodge and Mapleton Road. Increases to planning applications fees were also scheduled to be discussed. These fees are set nationally but, as the report notes, the government is consulting on a further increase in householder applications fees.

An equalities assessment was also provided to the committee.

The Scrutiny Report

The Scrutiny team were scheduled to update the Budget Scrutiny Committee on their work programme, including their forward plan for the remainder of the year. The committee were also scheduled to discuss their ongoing review of the Council Tax Support Scheme and the Corporate Peer Challenge Action Plan.

The Scrutiny Report details actions arising from the previous meeting, held on 14 November 2024, including:

• A request from the committee that they be provided with the bi-monthly framework for monitoring the assurance of savings targets in the Medium Term Financial Strategy and Transformation Programme.
• A request from the committee that they have sight of the strategy for enhancing financial management capability within the Council.

The report also details recommendations made by the committee in the previous meeting. These include:

• A recommendation that Revenues and Benefits services send details of the Local Council Tax Support Scheme consultation to Streetbase co-ordinators. ¹
• A recommendation that Revenues and Benefits services develop bespoke communications for residents adversely impacted by proposed changes to the scheme, signposting them to alternative support.

The Scrutiny Officer was scheduled to inform the committee that a pre-budget workshop would be arranged for committee members in due course.