Purpose

New legislation enables local authorities to
backdate discretionary rate relief where appropriate. The ability
to backdate will need to be updated within the policy and then it
will be local discretionary decision as to how far the relief can
be backdated.
The decision to be made is to whether to adopt this ability to
backdate within the policy.

Content

That Cabinet recommends that Full Council
adopts Options 1 and 4 within this
report, namely that:
      
Backdating provisions which mirror the current
legislative backdating rules are adopted within the Discretionary
Rate Relief Policy. Awards will be considered from the date the
application is received.  In exceptional
circumstances consideration may be given to awarding rate relief
for a retrospective period where the ratepayer can demonstrate good
cause for not submitting the application earlier, subject to the
following constraints relating to discretionary awards:
 
i)                
If the application is received by 30 September, the award can be
backdated to 1 April of the previous financial year.

 
ii)              
If the application is received after 30 September, the award can
only be backdated to 1 April of the current financial year.
 
iii)             
that relief can be amended or ceased by the Council at any such
time (determined on a daily basis) as the Council considers that
the ratepayer no longer meets the criteria for receiving the
relief.     
 
and
 
That any future changes required to the
Discretionary Rate Relief Policy are passed for delegated decision
to the Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Housing and Finance and
the s151 Officer, in conjunction with the Monitoring Officer, if
appropriate.