Purpose

The report proposes an aggregated 6% price
increase for commercial services at the Library service and The
Atkinson in order to meet increased costs, specifically in
utilities, National Non Domestic Rates and staffing.  In addition, the Atkinson has a £25k savings
target for the 2025/26 budget.

Decision

Decision(s):

 

(1)

the proposed price increases of
circa 6% be approved;
 

(2)

the current prices of certain key community
activities be maintained; and
 

(3)

the online booking fee be increased by 50p to
£1.50.
 

 
Reason(s) for the
Decision(s):
 
It is proposed to increase the core commercial prices (for
room hire, activities etc) by
approximately 6% to help increase the revenue generated from
commercial services.
 
Some purely commercial lines, such as stage equipment hire
and commercial listing guides, have been benchmarked against
operations in the region and re-aligned to better reflect current
commercial rates, in addition some new items have been added due to
demand and to increase revenue generation
 
The core library charges for book reservations and late
fees are not planned to be increased so that library use
isn’t discouraged (as it is still in the recovery phase after
the pandemic), and due to the nature of the scale of the charges
(either 1p or 12p per day) a small percentage charge would not be
applicable.  Some larger % increases are
for additional services, such as photocopying or printing, however
the actual fiscal increase is 5p for these services.
 
One pivotal change will be the proposed increase in the
online booking fee at the Atkinson by 50p, this has not been
increased for over 4 years, and will still be significantly less
than other providers (Liverpool Empire at £3.95 per booking),
in the last 12 months we have had over 39,000 people book online
therefore this would generate nearly £20k of gross revenue
for the Atkinson.
 
We believe the alignment of the charges to more
commercially viable rates will increase revenue without decreasing
demand. 
 
Alternative Options
Considered and Rejected
 
Maintaining the current pricing
structure will negatively impact on the ability of the service to
cover costs of provision