Agenda item

Fees and Charges

To receive and consider the Fees and Charges report and appendixes.

Minutes:

The Committee received the Fees and Charges report which was set out in agenda pages 55-80.

 

Sean Murphy stated that the usual procedure for setting the fees and charges was for the report to be submitted firstly to the Joint Public Protection Partnership (JPPP), then to the Licensing and Appeals Committee before its final submission to the Executive.  However, on this occasion, the fees and charges were being presented to the Licensing and Appeals Committee before their submission to the JPPP; this was due to the fact that the JPPP meeting in September had been postponed.

 

Sean Murphy stated the Taxi Task and Finish Group had asked for more information on the fees and charges and the discussions were still ongoing.  The vast majority of the other fees and charges had only gone up by the level of inflation.

 

Sean Murphy stated that there were two major changes in the report.  The first was in relation to the fees for private hire operators; the fee now differentiated operators according to the number of vehicles in their fleet, therefore making the system fairer.  The report also proposed a reduction for renewal fees and a charge of 15 minutes extra per dispensation vehicles.  The breakdown was explained in detail in Appendix C of the report.

 

During the discussion of the item the following comments were made:

 

·           Councillor Ferris pointed out that the calculations in Appendix C were not right.  He also stated that there should be a discount for five year applications.  Sean Murphy agreed with his points and was going to review the calculations;

·           Councillor Burges stated that it would have been helpful to see a comparison with the old fees in the report;

·           Amanda Ward stated that the legislation in relation to animal welfare had changed in 2018; as a result of this the fees included a new structure for animal licensing establishments.  She stated that establishments were issued a licence with ‘star’ rating attached to it.  If an establishment was licenced with one star, it could be issued with a three year licence, depending on the result of the inspection visit.  The local authority aimed to have all establishments licenced with high standards;

·           Amanda Ward stated that this was a full cost recovery service;

·           In response to a question Amanda Ward stated that there was a fee for variation in ownership;

·           Sean Murphy explained that the new legislation required complex forms to be completed, for example the inspection form was 45 pages long.  Therefore there needed to be an adjustment of the resources in order to comply with the new requirements;

·           In response to a question Amanda Ward stated that irrespectively of how many stars an establishment had, there was a requirement to carry out at least one unannounced visit in the time of the licence;

·           In response to a question, Sean Murphy stated that this was the right amount to charge to recover the costs at the moment.  However, this would be kept under review;

·           Members reminded Officers that they expected that, going forward, consultations would be more effective than they had been in the past.  Members asked that consultations be advertised as much as possible, in the various papers within the Borough as well as the website;

·           Officers acknowledged the issue of consultations and stated that this was going to be rectified;

·           Councillor Ferris noticed that the rates for street trading varied significantly between local authorities and asked the reason for this variation.  Sean Murphy stated street trade fees varied depending on the location; he stated that there was an aspiration to have unity in the shared service, but he expected that there would always be some variation in street trading fees.

 

After the debate of the item and upon being put to the vote, the Committee agreed to the recommendations.

 

RESOLVED That:

1)     The Committee recommends to the Executive the fees and charges set out in the report, subject to:

 

a)     any amendments of the Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle Fees resulting from the ongoing considerations of the Taxi and Private Hire Liaison Group;

 

b)    consideration of any representations resulting from the statutory consultation on fees relating to Taxi and Private Vehicles and Private Hire Operators Fees; and

 

c)    consideration of any representations resulting from the statutory consultation on fees relating to those affected by the new animal licensing regime.

Supporting documents: