Issue - meetings

This report shows the expected financial position over the three year medium term based on the Council’s actual financial performance at the end of period 10 (31 January 2025) set against the latest budget.

Alison Scott, Director of Finance, presented the report and outlined the movements in the council’s financial position, most notably additional income from Penalty Charge Notices (PCN) due to the reallocation of civil enforcement officers, and additional recycling income.

Members considered the increased PCN income. It was recognised that the Council cannot seek to generate profit through parking schemes, and instead enforcement work should focus on changing behaviours to prevent future poor parking. The council had increased the budgets in this area to allocate more out of hours parking enforcement, and introduced new parking schemes which partly accounted for the additional income. Members had been asked to put forward areas of problem parking for parking enforcement officers; it was agreed in principle that future parking reports could include information on how successful such initiatives had been in reducing parking issues in those areas.

Turning to recycling, an issue was raised regarding high street bins, which did not include separate recycling compartments, which could suppress recycling rates. On the other hand, if users did not correctly allocate their waste to the correct bin, this could result in increased contamination and it was not possible to hand-sort the high street bins. It was noted that there was a review of trade waste planned to review declining income. The trade waste budget had been revised for the 2025/26 budget.

Queries were also raised relating to nameplate budgets; income on properties and aborted costs for development sites.

The recommendations in the report were agreed by assent.