Issue - meetings

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.