Mr Mark
Green, Director of Finance and Business Improvement, gave a
presentation to the Committee providing an update on the projects
that had been undertaken as a result of additional funding secured
through participating in the Kent and Medway 100% Business Rates
Retention pilot.
Mr
Green outlined that progress had been made on most of the projects,
with around half the budget spent or already committed. For those
projects that were not progressing as planned, alternative uses for
the funds to achieve similar outcomes had been
identified.
The
Committee noted that the Council had made a bid to the Housing and
Commercial Growth Fund element of the Business Rates Retention
pilot for a project to improve the bus station. The decision on
this project was the responsibility of the North Kent Cluster of
local authorities.
In
response to a question from a member of the Committee, Mr Green
confirmed that although there had been slow progress on spending
the funds allocated to the member grant scheme, there had been a
lot of interest from members in the scheme.
The
Committee raised the issue of underspends, and queried whether the
initial projections on potential income were on target. Mr Green
explained that if there were underspends then member approval would
be sought to carry them forward to 2019/20 if appropriate, and
projections showed that the Council was due to collect a greater
proportion of business rates from the scheme than originally
anticipated.
RESOLVED:
That the progress with the Business Rates Retention
pilot projects are noted.