Issue - meetings

The report of the Head of Partnership

Mrs S O’Hanlon presented the report to Members. She advised Members that since November the Partnership had moved into the annual billing testing ready for Council Tax approval in February. She highlighted that all three authorities were meeting their targets for processing new claims and changes, and were in the tolerances for LA error. She informed the Committee that even though the report highlighted Universal Credit changes were constantly happening and therefore she proposed to bring an update report to a future meeting, and that LCC were no longer funding their element of the discretionary scheme.

In relation to revenues, Mrs S O’Hanlon advised that NWL were on target for Council Tax collection rates, and that HBBC and HDC were lightly down however there were no significant issues. In relation to Business Rates there was a significant reduction for HDC but it was due to one new assessment however work was being carried out to arrange repayment. She highlighted that other work relating to enforcement agent contracts, small business rates reviews and the timetable for annual billing had been carried out.

In response to a question from Councillor C Ladkin, Mrs S O’Hanlon advised the Committee that the review was carried out to ensure that all business receiving the rates had not made any changes to the size of their business and that there were no significant issues following the review.

RESOLVED THAT:

The Performance Summary Report November 2018 be noted.