Agenda item
Trading Standards Fees and Charges 2017/18
This report provides Members with information concerning the proposed level of fees and charges to be made by the Brent & Harrow Trading Standards Service during 2017/18.
Minutes:
Members received a report that provided them with information concerning the proposed level of fees and charges to be made by the Brent & Harrow Trading Standards Service during 2017/18.
Simon Legg (Regulatory Services Manager) clarified that there were 3 types of fees as follows:
Statutory fees which were set nationwide by Government and accordingly, local authorities had no discretion to vary them. The fees apply to explosive (firework) licenses charged by the Harrow team but in Brent, this function was carried out by the Licensing Team. The fees were set by the Health and Safety Executive who applied a small rise in them from 6 April 2016. The increase in fees had typically been between £1-10.00 as set out in the report.
Another form of statutory fee was the Redress Schemes for Lettings Agency Work and Property Management Work (Requirement to Belong to a Scheme etc) (England) Order 2014, reported to the Board’s meeting in October 2016. Although the legislation allowed that a monetary penalty of up to £5,000 can be imposed in some circumstances where a breach had taken place, but gave the local authority the option to determine what level it wished to set the fee. A proposal to reduce the fee by 50% for an early payment made within 14 days, subject to any mitigating factors that the terms of the Order required the Council to consider, was agreed by Cabinet in April 2017.
A RPI escalator applies to Primary Authority partnerships where the Service had partnered with businesses who work across the whole of the UK and who had chosen to receive their advice and guidance from one regulatory service as opposed to multiple authorities wherever they trade. Section 31 Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2008 provides that a local authority is entitled to charge a business on a ‘cost recovery’ basis, for primary authority services supplied through the partnership. Brent’s Executive agreed a report titled “Introduction of a Charge Based Regulatory Advice Service for Businesses’ in June 2013, to increase the rates charged for primary authority advice, on an annual basis on 1st April each year by the annual change in the Retail Price Index (RPI) for January of the year concerned. The Office of National Statistics assessed a variant of RPI called RPIJ and using this, at January 2017, the 12 month rise was 1.8%. Simon Legg drew members’ attention to the table in the report that showed the proposed increase to the hourly rates charged for primary authority service.
The remaining fees the Council has discretion to determine annually, with any change in the fee being set each year according to prevailing circumstances. He continued that in order to attract work, the service needed to remain competitive with fees charged by other local authorities or private businesses in some circumstances. The prevailing rate of RPIJ, i.e. 1.8% has been used to determine the suggested fees for 2017/18. In relation to fees for weights and measures work, the local authority can charge ‘such reasonable fees as we determine’ for carrying out our duties under the Act (only S11(5) and S49(4) of the Weights and Measures Act 1985). To assist setting these fees, officers recommended following annual guidance issued by the Association of Chief Trading Standards Officers (ACTSO).
Simon Legg explained that the authority was currently in discussion regarding increasing the hourly rate for officers working at Wembley Stadium events up to £40 per hour. These discussions formed part of the S106 Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (as amended) agreement, designed to mitigate the impact. He updated members that Brent Planning Committee had approved an application to increase full capacity events at the stadium each year.
RESOLVED:-
That the report on Trading Standards fees and charges 2017/18 be noted with no comment on the proposed fee increases.
Supporting documents: