Issue - meetings

Report of the Director – Finance and Corporate Services

The Chairman explained that the Group had agreed to invite Councillors who had put forward a scrutiny matrix to attend the meeting to explain their reasons for putting the item forward for scrutiny.

Councillor Thomas joined the meeting to present her matrix for Council Tax options for empty homes. She explained that the budget briefing session had included a session on reducing the period for applying the empty homes premium from twenty four to twelve months and that discussions had included reference to a variety of factors such as including furnished and unfurnished properties, derelict homes and probate. She said that the proposals had referred to the financial impact but thought that the social impact also needed to be included. She said that there was no data about what the social impact from reducing the time period would be.

Councillor Thomas noted that Officers had suggested reviewing the Empty Homes Strategy but had concern that this would only review what the Council was already doing and not what it was not doing. She said that the Strategy did not include derelict homes or furnished homes that were empty for long periods of time. She wanted to understand the fuller picture, including what was discretionary in terms of premiums and discounts. She referred to section 76 of the Levelling Up Bill about dwellings occupied periodically which included furnished properties which were often empty, such as second homes.

Councillor Thomas supported the scrutiny item as revised by officers but asked that her original lines of enquiry be included in the scope, including the possibilities from section 76 of the Levelling Up Bill, to provide a wider understanding of who paid Council Tax, who could receive a waiver, what discounts and premiums were available and what powers the council had available to it, to examine the data and look at the impact from a social context. She thought that the Council did a good job but relied on empty homes being reported to it.

The Service Manager Corporate Services said that Officers had suggested reviewing the Empty Homes Strategy to provide more information about the range of tools the Council had available to it in terms of empty homes, as Council Tax charging formed only a small part of the process. She added that it was hoped that providing fuller information would put Council Tax charging into context, to help provide a clearer view of how many empty homes there were, their impact on the community and how the Council dealt with specific cases. She said that Environmental Health Officers would be able to attend to explain what they did and what finance could do, to give a more overarching picture.

The Group thought that including the original submission along with the additional information requested by Councillor Thomas and the Empty Homes Strategy in the review would form a reasonable recommendation. The Chairman suggested that the item be titled a Review of Empty Homes Strategy including Council Tax and the Group agreed that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 29