The committee approved the third round of the Solar Together scheme and agreed the draft budget proposals for 2025/26. The committee asked for more information to be provided to them on the Solar Together scheme.

Solar Together Hertfordshire

The committee discussed a report about the Solar Together Hertfordshire scheme, which helps residents buy solar panels.

The scheme is administered by the independent company iChoosr but is run in partnership with the county's district councils¹.

Dacorum Council is the lead council in Hertfordshire for this scheme and has a contract with iChoosr that lasts 4 years. Dacorum Council pays for the cost of sending letters to residents in Hertfordshire informing them about the scheme, and then takes a commission fee from iChoosr for every successful installation of solar panels that occurs as a result of the scheme.

iChoosr expects to receive a fee from the winning Supplier for each Resident that accepts the winning Supplier's offer and enters into a contract with them. iChoosr will share this fee with the [Council], by paying [the Council] a Commission.

The second round of the scheme resulted in 537 households having solar panels installed.

The combined Solar Together Hertfordshire schemes (cohorts 1 and 2) have delivered 1,665 installations across the county, resulting in 6.2 MW installed capacity, and over £17 million in private resident investment in renewables.

Responsibility for managing the Council's contract with iChoosr has been passed from the Hemel Garden Communities team to the Council's Climate and Ecological Emergency Team.

The committee approved a recommendation to run a third round of the scheme in early 2025, but asked officers to provide the following additional information:

• The demographic information for the Solar Together mail shots.
• The costs to the installer for Solar Panels.
• Statistics on how many people pulled out of the scheme due to structural issues.

Draft 2025/26 Budget Proposals

The committee considered a report about the Council's draft budget proposals for 2025/26.

The report sets out a proposed balanced budget for 2025/26 that does not require the use of the Council's reserves.

The budget includes an expected increase in employer National Insurance payments, which will be mitigated by a combination of government funding and a lower-than-expected pay award for Council staff in 2024/25.

The budget also includes a 2.99% increase to Council Tax² for 2025/26, an increase of £6.86 per year for a Band D property.

The report highlights a number of risks to the budget, including the financial performance of income-generating services like car parking, the refuse service, and the temporary accommodation service. The report states that these services are being carefully monitored.

At present, the Council faces uncertain times and hence projections are more open to challenge and change than in previous years. As a result, there are a number of service risks where financial performance and service development processes remain under careful scrutiny and monitoring and will be reported back to Members if performance differs from expectations.

The report also includes the following proposals that will need to be formally approved by the Council:

• A £154k increase in the fee for the Garden Waste collection service.
• A £371k increase in the fee for garage rentals.

The committee noted the report.