Issue - meetings

Report of the Executive Director (Resources, Environment and Cultural Services) on the final guidelines agreed under the delegated authority given by the Cabinet and in consultation with Hertfordshire County Council, together with an update on budget announcements.

Report of the Executive Director (Resources, Environment and Cultural Services) on the final guidelines agreed under the delegated authority given by the Cabinet and in consultation with Hertfordshire County Council, together with an update on budget announcements.

(1)        The Decision Taken

RESOLVED:

That the local discretionary rate relief guidelines to support businesses that faced the steepest increases in their business bills as a result of the 2017 revaluation be noted.  

(2)        Reasons for the Decision

The April Cabinet meeting agreed to give delegated authority to the Executive Director (Resources, Environment and Cultural Services), in consultation with the Executive Member (Resources), to agree non-domestic rate discretionary relief guidelines for those businesses facing large increases in rates payable following the 2017 rating revaluation (Minute 157 refers). 

Rateable values were used by local Councils to calculate business rates and revaluation was the updating of rateable values of business properties.

The Valuation Office Agency generally reassessed rateable values in England and Wales every five years based on their open market rental value on a fixed date, although the last revaluation was in 2010. The April 2017 revaluation was based on rental values on 1 April 2015.  The purpose of revaluation was to maintain fairness in the system by redistributing the total amount payable in business rates, reflecting changes in the property market.  

Concerns had been raised nationally following the revaluation exercise and this had resulted in business rate budget changes to absorb the impact of some of the rate increases following revaluation.  One of the measures announced was to distribute funding to local authorities to provide discretionary relief to target individual cases, where business rates bills had increased significantly following revaluation.  

(Note: There were no declarations of interest by a Member(s) in respect of the matter decided).