Issue - meetings

1. Cabinet approved the Collection Fund surplus estimate of £429,119.98 as at 31 March 2023. The Dacorum Borough Council share of this surplus is £50,451.32.

2. Cabinet approved the payment profile for the surplus identified at 1) above and contained at section 2.8 to this report (Table 3).

3. Cabinet approved the calculation of the Council’s tax base for the year 2023/24 incorporating an estimated collection rate of 99.4%.

4. Cabinet agreed that, in accordance with the Local Authorities (Calculation of Tax Base) Regulations 2012, the amount calculated by the Council as its tax base for the year 2023/24 shall be 59,922.3 and its constituent elements shall be

Decision

1. Cabinet approved the Collection Fund surplus estimate of £429,119.98 as at 31 March 2023. The Dacorum Borough Council share of this surplus is £50,451.32.

2. Cabinet approved the payment profile for the surplus identified at 1) above and contained at section 2.8 to this report (Table 3).

3. Cabinet approved the calculation of the Council’s tax base for the year 2023/24 incorporating an estimated collection rate of 99.4%.

4. Cabinet agreed that, in accordance with the Local Authorities (Calculation of Tax Base) Regulations 2012, the amount calculated by the Council as its tax base for the year 2023/24 shall be 59,922.3 and its constituent elements shall be:

Corporate Priorities

A clean, safe and enjoyable environment

Building strong and vibrant communities

Ensuring economic growth and prosperity

Providing good quality affordable homes, in particular for those most in need

Ensuring efficient, effective and modern service delivery

Climate and ecological emergency.

.

Statutory Officer Comments:

Monitoring Officer:

No comments to add to the report

S151 Officer:

This is a Deputy Section 151 officer report.

Advice

Cllr Elliot introduced the report and was happy to take questions.

NHowcutt said that these technical reports could be quite difficult to get your head around. He said that the report showed a £500k surplus which appears to be a big variance however they collected £113 million last year so this comes out at 0.3% in terms of what they expect to collect. The impact in Dacorum is only around £50k and they smoothed that out with the funding equalization reserve to it does not affect the overall budget. In terms of the council tax base set for 23/24, they were seeing a 1% increase, which they have modelled in the budget, so from that perspective it is in line with what they have in the budget and the medium term financial strategy. Im previous years they had always achieved their collection rate on the council tax, up to period 7 or 8 they were in a good place, where they go no with the costs of living crisis there was a potential risk to that collection rate. Council tax is often lower down the list of priorities for people to pay when their income is stretched so they may see an impact on that.

Cllr Tindall asked if they had noticed many people moving from a 10 month to 12-month payment of their council tax due to the cost of living crisis.

NHowcutt said that it was difficult to give a straight answer too as around four to five years ago the council moved to a having the option for a 12 month payment plan or 10 month for residents. Many of the residents moved to the 12 month at that point. Then came covid and they saw a bigger increase. Now they were seeing similar increase levels as before covid. They expected to see more move to the 12 months as they come to the respites of February and March, people might  ...  view the full minutes text for item 113