Issue - meetings

Mr Mark Green, the Director of Finance and Business Improvement, presented a report outlining the Council Tax Base and Collection Fund Adjustment.

Mr Green explained that the authority was required to provide projections on the Council Tax base each year. The Council Tax Base figure equated to the number of residential properties in the borough that were liable to pay Council Tax, taking into account other factors that may affect the Council Tax Base including the issuing of various allowances and the proportion of non-collection. The calculation of this figure allowed the Council, and other precepting authorities, to make future financial projections. The Committee noted that in 2018/19 the growth in the Council Tax base was predicted to be 2%, but the actual growth was 1.82%.

Alongside the Council Tax Base, an adjustment was required to the Council’s Collection Fund. The Collection Fund was the fund the Council was required to maintain to ensure any variances between the predicted and actual collection of Council Tax was reflected in the payments made to the various precepting authorities.

In response to a question from the Committee, Mr Green confirmed that the Council was not allowed to hold a contingency fund in the event of over distributing the collection fund. However as precepting authorities tended to remain the same year to year, it was possible to recover any over allocation through subsequent distributions of the fund.

The Committee requested that an updated appendix showing the Parish Council Tax Base, including a further column with the previous year’s data in, be circulated to members following the meeting.

RESOLVED:

1.  Pursuant to this report and in accordance with the Local Authority (Calculation of Council Tax Base) (England) Regulations 2012, the amount calculated by this Authority as its Council Tax Base for the year 2019/20 will be 62,033.4;

2.  In accordance with the Local Authority (Calculation of Council Tax Base) (England) Regulations 2012, the amount calculated by this Authority as the Council Tax Base for each parish area for the year 2019/20 will be as identified in Appendix 2 to this report.

3.  The 2018/19 Council Tax projection and proposed distribution detailed in Appendix 3 of this report is agreed.

Voting: Unanimous