Agenda item

To receive and consider the Fees and Charges for Licensable Activity 2023/24.

Ed Shaylor, Head of Enforcement and Safety presented the Fees and Charges for Licensable Activity 2023/24 report which was set out in agenda pages 11-28.

The report contained answers to questions raised at the previous meeting.  In particular, the report gave more detail on discretionary fees, which the Council had the power to set - statutory fees were set by central government.

The recommendation was to increase the fees by approximately 10%, by increasing the hourly rate from £59 to £65.  Officers had estimated how many hours it took to process an application and manage the licensing regime, this hourly rate was used to calculate the cost of a licence. The detail was in Appendix A.

The Committee had previously asked for a breakdown on the Service’s budget costs, this was included in Appendix B and it included salary, non-salary costs and central re-charges.  It was pointed out that Trading Standards was a service which Wokingham outsourced from the PPP and had to be paid for, and this was included in the non-salary costs.

Appendix C included a breakdown of the hourly rate calculation, and Appendix D included examples of cost calculations.  Appendix E included a benchmarking exercise.

During the discussion of the item the following comments and queries were raised:

·           Councillor Dennis asked for more information in relation to the fees for metal recycling and dog fouling. He also asked for more information about the deficit;

·           Ed Shaylor explained that:

Ø  Dog fouling was under the Dog Warden Services (even though this was technically a penalty).  The question of why this had increased by 7% when everything else had increased by nearly 10% had been raised prior to the meeting.  He proposed that this fee be increased to the default £100;

Ø  The Scrap Metal – change of site manager had reduced because the current fee was an anomaly, not in line with the hourly rate.  The proposed fee, although lower, was not significantly lower and it would bring the fee in line with the hourly rate;

Ø  One of the reasons for the deficit was that the statutory fees did not go up very often.  For example, the alcohol fee had not been increased since 2005 and these applications, which were many, were processed at a loss.  It would not be fair to make discretionary fees applicants subsidise statutory licences.

·           In relation to market trading, Councillor Dennis asked if it was the Parish Council that held the licence or the trader;

·           Keiran Hinchcliffe, Service Manager for Licensing and Processing explained that there was a mix of arrangements.  A Parish Council could have a trading licence, manage the pitches to traders, and pay the licence to the local authority.  But there were also independent traders that held their own licences;

·           Councillor Smith noted that 38% of the income was from discretionary fees and 62% was from statutory fees.  He asked if there was any loss of business as a result of pubs closing;

·           Keiran Hinchcliffe was of the opinion that closures would have had an impact, and he offered to run a report if required by the Committee;

·           Councillor Loyes noticed that there was a big difference in the increase of the fees for new caravan sites and the other licences for caravan sites and asked for an explanation;

·           Ed Shaylor explained that this was a fee for new caravan sites, plus the fee per pitch was £16, the existing caravan sites paid £14 per pitch as an annual fee;

·           Councillor Kerr made reference to paragraph 12, page 13 of the agenda, and asked for further explanation on the safeguarding risks relating to reducing capacity in the service;

·           Ed Shaylor explained that if, hypothetically, a decision was made to reduce capacity in order to balance the budget without increasing fees, compliance checks would not be undertaken.  The service would have to delete the two licensing posts.  The local authority had a statutory duty to process applications, so processing officers would be retained in such a scenario;

·           In terms of enforcement, Keiran Hinchcliffe informed that internal audits had been carried out on current licences and risks had been found.  For example, Officers had checked all the data available on taxi drivers, and as a result two taxi drivers had had their licences revoked immediately under Officer delegated authority.  Officers had carried out inspections with the police on Pubs Watches and taken part on prosecution of licensing offenses.  Should officer capacity be reduced, this work would not be carried out, consequently increasing public safety risk;

·           Ed Shaylor added that work was also undertaken in relation to unlicensed people and premises;

·           The Chairman confirmed that as a result of this audit and enforcement work, a number of appeals had been received and various Sub-Committees had been convened to determine the outcome of those licences.  She believed that it was important to continue this work for the purpose of keeping the public safe;

·           In response to a question Ed Shaylor confirmed that the checks were being carried out for all licence holders, not just taxi drivers.  It included street trading, animal boarding, and others;

·           There was general consensus that this work should be carried out, Members asked that once the audit was completed, the Committee would like to receive a report outlining its findings;

·           Councillor Soane noted that there were a number of licences that required follow up checks.  He asked if this additional work was considered in the costings of such licences and wondered if there were some inconsistencies in the pricings;

·           Ed Shaylor informed that the service charged 23 hours per street trading consent annual fee, 3 hours for an individual skin piercing person and 5 hours for a premise, so 8 hours altogether for a licence for skin treatments.  Keiran Hinchcliffe agreed to review this for the next year;

·           In response to a question Ed Shaylor informed that the Council did not charge for food hygiene inspections as this was a statutory requirement.  Food establishments operated under a different regime, under the Food Standards Agency;

·           Ed Shaylor informed that there was a peculiarity in relation to skin treatments, in that if the Council wanted to enforce hygiene standards, it had to have bylaws in place.  This was something that was being currently reviewed with the Legal team;

·           The service would also undertake a review of animal boarding licence fees, as these type of licences could take a lot of Officer time;

·           Councillor Neil noted that the market licence fee for the town market was the same as the licence fee for a sole trader and wondered if this was fair;

·           Keiran Hinchcliffe stated that he was discussing this issue with other Officers, and it seemed that the Town Council had a historical permit for the use of that land, which in recent years had moved to a street trading authorisation.  It was a different licensing model;

·           Ed Shaylor pointed out that street traders did not have to pay for premises costs;

·           Councillor Firmager asked if market traders paid a licence fee to the Town Council;

·           Keira Hinchcliffe stated that it was possible that traders paid a lower amount to the Town Council;

·           The Chairman informed that ancient laws regulated markets, in Woodley, traders paid a fee to the Town Council for the administration of the market;

·           Councillor Kerr stated that the cost of the licence was directly related to the number of hours it took to process the licence, and asked if there was a difference in the number of hours it took to process a market licence versus a sole trader licence;

·           Keiran Hinchcliffe stated that this was a trade-off, the Town Council regulated that area;

·           Councillor Dennis asked if the PPP had been informed of the risks that had been identified in Wokingham following the audit?

·           Officers agreed to feedback to the PPP.

In relation to the charge for stray dog – kennel charge in addition to recovery charge (page 22 of the agenda), it was pointed out that the in the report the charge was for 5 days at £16 a day with a maximum charge of £80.  However, it had been pointed out that dogs had to be kennelled for 7 days, so Officers proposed to make this charge £112, for a maximum of 7 days rather than 5.

A proposal to adopt the statutory maximum fee charge for all penalties and licences was discussed but there was insufficient support for this proposal.

Upon being put to the vote and after much discussion, the Committee agreed to the recommendations set out below.

RESOLVED That:

1)     The Committee notes the proposed discretionary fees for 2023/24 set out at Appendix A as part of the Council’s annual fee setting process, with the following amendments:

a)     The penalty for dog fouling be increased to £100

b)     The maximum fee for stray dog kennelling be increased to 7 days at £112

2)     The Committee recommends to Executive that, in relation to those fees which are within the Council’s discretion to set, the fees should follow best practice and ensure that the cost to the Council of administering, managing and enforcing the licensing regime is covered by the fee income; and

3)     The following items be added to the Forward Programme:

a)     The audit review on checks and enforcement

b)     The review of discretionary fees for 2024/25 with specific reference to street trading, dermal treatments and animal boarding