Agenda, decisions and minutes

To confirm as a correct record the minutes of the meeting on 12^th December 2017.

That the minutes be approved and signed by the Chairman as a correct record.

The minutes of the meetings held on 12^th December were submitted and confirmed as a correct record.

RESOLVED:

That the minutes be approved and signed by the Chairman as a correct record.

To receive any Declarations and advise Members accordingly.

Following advice from the Chief Officer (Governance), Councillors Allport and Woolley declared personal and prejudicial interests in agenda item number 8, Notice of Motion.  Councillors Carver, Gay, Paul Johnson, Tudor Jones, McGuill and Carolyn Thomas declared personal interests in the same item.

Following advice from the Chief Officer (Governance), Councillors Allport and Woolley declared personal and prejudicial interests in agenda item number 8, Notice of Motion.  Councillors Carver, Gay, Paul Johnson, Tudor Jones, McGuill and Carolyn Thomas declared personal interests in the same item.

To receive the communications as circulated.

A copy of the Chairman’s Communications had been circulated to all Members prior to the meeting.

A copy of the Chairman’s Communications had been circulated to all Members prior to the meeting.

            The Chair commented in particular on the businesses in Flintshire who had been recognised at the Flintshire Business Week.  He paid tribute to the late Stephen Hampson, son of the late Councillor Ron Hampson and his wife Rita who had touched the lives of many people.

To receive any Petitions.

Councillor McGuill submitted an online petition which had been signed by 10,532 people seeking that the 20% top up for Non Domestic Rates be reintroduced for Scout Groups.  A further 358 signatures had been received via a paper petition and a letter of support for the petition had been received from Bear Grylls, the Chief Scout for the United Kingdom.

Councillor McGuill submitted an online petition which had been signed by 10,532 people seeking that the 20% top up for Non Domestic Rates be reintroduced for Scout Groups.  A further 358 signatures had been received via a paper petition and a letter of support for the petition had been received from Bear Grylls, the Chief Scout for the United Kingdom.

To receive any Public Questions.

None were received.

None were received.

To note the answers to any questions submitted in accordance with County Council Standing Order No. 9.4(A).

The Chief Officer (Governance) explained that two questions had been received and had been copied, along with the response, and handed out.

Councillor Clive Carver:

            “In relation to the removal of Discretionary Business Rate Relief by Flintshire County Council for Registered Charities and voluntary groups, can the Cabinet Member please advise (a) how many Registered Charities and voluntary groups have since applied for hardship rate relief? And (b) how many such applications have been granted”.

Answer:

“Since April 2017 a total of 6 Hardship applications have been received from Registered Charities or Voluntary Groups and 1 organisation has been awarded Hardship Relief – which equated to their full liability for 2017-18.

We always promote the Hardship Rate Relief scheme where there are financial risks to any Charitable or Voluntary organisation, or indeed to any commercial business, by making payment of business rates.

It’s important to say that each application for Hardship Rate Relief must be looked at on its own merits and where organisations have insufficient funds to pay the 20% liability, we will act in the wider public interest by awarding Hardship Relief.  To date, based on the written evidence submitted from various organisations, there have been very few proven cases that would meet the test of hardship.

The Hardship scheme remains open, and we encourage all organisations to speak to the Business Rates service if they want make an application for the first time (or re-apply again, even if a previous application has been unsuccessful).”

            Councillor Carver took the opportunity to ask a supplementary question:

            “Can you please provide a breakdown of figures of the six hardship applications, including the one that was awarded hardship relief?”  Councillor Aaron Shotton said that information could be obtained and would be sent to Councillor Carver. 

Councillor Arnold Woolley:

            “Is the authority reliably aware of the number of houses within the County which have been continuously empty/unused for at least six months and how many of such has the authority dealt with by use of existing available powers so as to bring them into purposeful occupation”.

Answer:

            There are currently just under 800 long term empty homes in the County.

The Council has a number of strategies in place to bring long term empty (LTE) homes back into full use. Once of the most effective ways of bringing these properties back into use has been use of the Local Taxation system to incentivise owners to focus on getting their properties occupied again.

Full Council endorsed the recommendation of cabinet to introduce a Council Tax Premium scheme in April 2017, which effectively now imposes an additional 50% charge on owners of LTE properties, as well as on second homes.  

Around the time of introducing the Council Tax Premium scheme, officers were asked to write to owners of all LTE’S to promote access to other Council services which could assist with bringing LTE property back into use.

Since the introduction of this scheme, our records show that 212 LTE properties 45 second homes  ...  view the full decision text for item 85.

The Chief Officer (Governance) explained that two questions had been received and had been copied, along with the response, and handed out.

Councillor Clive Carver:

            “In relation to the removal of Discretionary Business Rate Relief by Flintshire County Council for Registered Charities and voluntary groups, can the Cabinet Member please advise (a) how many Registered Charities and voluntary groups have since applied for hardship rate relief? And (b) how many such applications have been granted”.

Answer:

“Since April 2017 a total of 6 Hardship applications have been received from Registered Charities or Voluntary Groups and 1 organisation has been awarded Hardship Relief – which equated to their full liability for 2017-18.

We always promote the Hardship Rate Relief scheme where there are financial risks to any Charitable or Voluntary organisation, or indeed to any commercial business, by making payment of business rates.

It’s important to say that each application for Hardship Rate Relief must be looked at on its own merits and where organisations have insufficient funds to pay the 20% liability, we will act in the wider public interest by awarding Hardship Relief.  To date, based on the written evidence submitted from various organisations, there have been very few proven cases that would meet the test of hardship.

The Hardship scheme remains open, and we encourage all organisations to speak to the Business Rates service if they want make an application for the first time (or re-apply again, even if a previous application has been unsuccessful).”

            Councillor Carver took the opportunity to ask a supplementary question:

            “Can you please provide a breakdown of figures of the six hardship applications, including the one that was awarded hardship relief?”  Councillor Aaron Shotton said that information could be obtained and would be sent to Councillor Carver. 

Councillor Arnold Woolley:

            “Is the authority reliably aware of the number of houses within the County which have been continuously empty/unused for at least six months and how many of such has the authority dealt with by use of existing available powers so as to bring them into purposeful occupation”.

Answer:

            There are currently just under 800 long term empty homes in the County.

The Council has a number of strategies in place to bring long term empty (LTE) homes back into full use. Once of the most effective ways of bringing these properties back into use has been use of the Local Taxation system to incentivise owners to focus on getting their properties occupied again.

Full Council endorsed the recommendation of cabinet to introduce a Council Tax Premium scheme in April 2017, which effectively now imposes an additional 50% charge on owners of LTE properties, as well as on second homes.  

Around the time of introducing the Council Tax Premium scheme, officers were asked to write to owners of all LTE’S to promote access to other Council services which could assist with bringing LTE property back into use.

Since the introduction of this scheme, our records show that 212 LTE properties 45 second homes  ...  view the full minutes text for item 85.

To consider any Notices of Motion.

(a)       That the amended Notice of Motion be supported as follows:

“We call upon Flintshire County Council to reconsider reinstating 100% business rate relief to all local community organisations with properties under the rateable value of £6,000.  This is the threshold which is set by Welsh Government for small businesses to quality for full business rate relief”; and

(b)       That a report be submitted to County Council on 20^th February with details of the options to reinstate Discretionary Rate Relief. WG would also be contacted on the lack of equity within the scheme.

Having earlier declared an interest, Councillors Allport and Woolley left the room.

One Notice of Motion had been received:

Councillor Hilary McGuill:

“We call upon FCC to reconsider reinstating 100% business rate relief on scout huts for scout organisations in Flintshire who own and manage their scout headquarters”.

In speaking to her Notice of Motion, Councillor McGuill said she felt sure the Council, when approving the removal of the 20% top up of Discretionary Rate Relief to voluntary organisations two years previous, did not realise that it would affect scout groups.  She said, in comparison, some small businesses did not pay anything for rates due to their rateable value adding that the scouts was not a business.  She felt Welsh Government (WG) should provide 100% rate relief for scout groups in the same way they did for places of worship.  Details of the financial impact it would have on some of the groups were provided and whilst this was significant for those individual groups, it was not a significant pressure on the Council’s budget.

The Notice of Motion was seconded by Councillor Tudor Jones.

Councillor McGuill requested a recorded vote.

Councillor Aaron Shotton gave notice of an amendment which was handed out to Members which was:

“We call upon Flintshire County Council to reconsider reinstating 100% business rate relief to all local community organisations with properties under the rateable value of £6,000.  This is the threshold which is set by Welsh Government for small businesses to qualify for full business rate relief”.

On speaking to his amendment, Councillor Shotton said the decision taken by the Council to remove the 20% discretionary rate relief two years ago was supported across the chamber.  However, he agreed with Councillor McGuill that national schemes should be funded wholly by WG.  To address that issue he proposed the amendment and said there was an anomaly relating to voluntary groups with a rateable value below £6,000 as they were not profit making and should not pay the 20% top up.  This was an opportunity for the Council to reinstate their decision.  On reading out his amendment, he said it provided a commitment to address the original Notice of Motion and to also help other community groups in the county.  He suggested that a report be brought back to County Council on 20^th February 2018 with details of a workable costed scheme.

The Chief Officer (Governance) asked if Councillor McGuill accepted the amendment to the Notice of Motion.  She expressed a concern that the amendment may not cover all scout groups as some may be over the £6,000 rateable value.  The Revenues Manager said he thought most, if not all, of the 13 scout groups should qualify for the top up.  Councillors McGuill and Richard Jones then asked if the 20% could be reinstated immediately to those that would quality under the amendment.  Following a discussion, Councillor McGuill requested a 10 minute adjournment so that legal advice could be sought on retrospectively reinstating Discretionary Rate Relief  ...  view the full minutes text for item 86.

(a)       That completion of Stages One and Two of the budget be noted with the exception of the Stage Two options for schools funding, car parking charges and Council Tax  levels, and the three requests made to Welsh Government which are under negotiation;

(b)       That the final forecast for 2018/19 be noted and approved taking into account the review of in-year cost pressures and their predicted impact on the following year;

(c)        That the arrangements for the third and closing stage of the budget setting process be noted; and

(d)       That the concerns be brought to the attention of the Cabinet Minister to immediately respond and assist a Council that was standing up against austerity in support of local services, and in particular schools.  There must be further assistance from Welsh Government for this Council.

The Chief Executive introduced the Stages One and Two of the Council Fund Budget 2018/19 and Planning for the Closing Stage Three report.  Appended to the report were Stage One efficiency options, Stage Two efficiency options confirmed, impact assessment summary and new cost pressures and efficiencies.  An amended version of appendix 3, impact assessment summary, was handed out.

An update on Stage One budget proposals was provided and covered garden waste charges and the integration of the music Service and Arts Development Team with Theatr Clwyd. The remaining items to be resolved from Stage Two budget proposals were schools funding, public car parking charges and the Council Tax increase.  One a potential efficiency from the GwE budget of 3%, he explained that the best collective outcome that had been negotiated was a 1% reduction in contributions.  However, with inflationary pressures the 1% reduction did not save the Council any funding in real terms.  The longer term budget for GwE was now subject to a review prior to 2019/20.

Details were also provided on three requests for support that had been submitted to Welsh Government (WG) which were on the maximum charge for domiciliary care costs, guaranteed continuation of the Intermediate Care Fund funding and retention of a proportion of Apprentice Tax Levy contributions.

The Corporate Finance Manager summarised the impact of the known outcomes from Stages One and Two which resulted in a remaining working gap of £5.9m.

On Council Tax, the Chief Executive explained that options had been shared with Members ranging from an increase of between 3% and 5%.  The Final Settlement from WG had set the Standard Spending Assessment (SSA) for Flintshire at £264.333m; for Flintshire to be funded at SSA and to maximise its local taxation income against that notional target would require an increase in Council Tax of 6.71%.  WG had confirmed that councils had the local flexibility to go above the previous annual ‘cap’ of a 5% increase if they had a strong local case.

The Council had limited useable reserves and a number of earmarked reserves which included some service balances carried forward to fund specific expenditure in year, and some reserves with terms and conditions attached to them which limited their use.  Work was underway to review all earmarked reserves and to challenge those that had not been used within the timeframe originally specified.  Any use of reserves to balance the 2018/19 budget would need to be repaid in a later year.

The Chief Executive highlighted one of the risks facing the Council which was the national pay award; the Council had budgeted for a 1% annual pay award in its forecast but Trade Unions were driving potentially higher awards.  WG had made it clear that it had no funding to meet higher than forecast national pay awards and expected the UK Government to make additional funding available for it to meet any difference in cost.

Councillor Aaron Shotton expressed his concern on the limited information on specific grants from WG with  ...  view the full minutes text for item 87.

(a)       That the Treasury Management Mid-Year Report 2017/18 be approved; and

(b)       That the decision to ‘opt up’ to professional client status by regulated financial services firms as a result of the second Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II) be approved.  This will enable the Council to continue to manage its treasury management activities as at present.

The Corporate Finance Manger introduced the Treasury Management Mid-Year Report 2017/18 for approval.

            The report had been considered at Audit Committee on 22^nd November 2017 where it was recommended to Cabinet.  Cabinet received the report on 19^th December 2017 and approved it for recommendation to County Council.

            Regulatory changes were coming into force in the near future with the main change being MiFID II (the second Markets in Financial Instruments Directive) which would come into force on 3^rd January 2018.  MiFID II required local authorities to be categorised by regulated financial services firms as retain clients by default who could “opt up” to be professional clients, providing that they met certain criteria.

The Council was classed as a professional client.  To “opt up” and continue its status the Council must hold an investment balance of at least £10m with the person authorised to make investment decisions having at least one year’s relevant experience.  Officers had considered the differing impacts of remaining a professional client or changing to a retail client and it was recommended that the Council maintained its current MiFID status of professional in order to continue to manage the Council’s daily treasury management activities as at present.

RESOLVED:

(a)       That the Treasury Management Mid-Year Report 2017/18 be approved; and

(b)       That the decision to ‘opt up’ to professional client status by regulated financial services firms as a result of the second Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II) be approved.  This will enable the Council to continue to manage its treasury management activities as at present.

There was one member of the press and 52 members of the public in attendance.