2015 Review: Election year marked by a deluge of business rates appeals

Photo (cropped): Paul Wilkinson, Flickr

Frank Wilson’s year was mixed with the General Election, business rates appeals and uncertainty over the New Homes Bonus undermining confidence for 2016.

In trying to sum up 2015 I am left in a bit of a quandary really – maybe a councillor’s description of my latest draft budget fits best – a curates egg – good in parts.

The year started well enough with a budget that actually planned to put money back into general fund reserves, largely, I have to say, due to New Homes Bonus (you all know I’m not smiling now).

My departing resources cabinet member was more than happy, before he left, to seek his seat in Parliament with a resounding send-off speech at a tax setting council meeting showering compliments to all involved in the process.

Things turned a little sticky thereafter. What’s that about timing? Don’t they say beware the Ides of March? Well, its most appropriate this year with the last two weeks or so seeing a positive flood, nay deluge, of business rates appeals.

Our estimated collection fund surplus in January turned into a rout by the time we finished our appeals provision in May – good job it wasn’t 100% retention at that stage.

Transient

The General Election came and went with my warning to the Executive that all could change come a election and change of government – our positive budget was likely to be transient.

Well, I think I was right but not necessarily for the right reasons. Summer came along with a run of bad news – our broadband project hit the rocks with the private sector partners pulling out; the county council did the dirty on us by pulling out of the garden waste recycling credits and the rumblings around changes to New Homes Bonus started again.

A first draft of the Medium Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) in September left me feeling distinctly queasy. Our new shared services programme with partners in Cotswold, Cheltenham and Forest of Dean produced increased savings projections and received clearance of all four full councils in October but even with the increased figures the gap was getting bigger.

We put the MTFS aside to concentrate on the budget but that didn’t really help as we had now identified around £500,000 of budget pressures courtesy of the county council and HMRC.

Despite a budget re-basing exercise producing equivalent savings the impact of business rates appeals was now pulling down our revenue streams too and, so, the draft budget sees us raiding reserves again and I still get the same question from members – another freeze in council tax?

Settlement

Still, for a few more days I can be positive, as I write this before the Sword of Damocles falls ,with the settlement statement in the House of Commons next week.

We are currently on a roll this month – our broadband project is now up and running with new private financing; the Police have promised to look again at their CCTV funding reduction and even the county council has said it is not yet shutting our final recycling centre in the district.

We even have a more positive outlook on our remaining F1 team with Renault due to buy Lotus – we may still get some business rates arrears out of them and, more to the point, save 450 highly skilled jobs.

151 resilience

So, what are my hopes for 2016 – well I hope that devolution may indeed give us access to funding that can help resolve some of the intractable infrastructure problems in Oxfordshire; enable growth, and perhaps, allow us to reverse this decline in business rates we are currently seeing.

I also hope that the changes in New Homes Bonus are not as wide ranging as suggested by some – I’m rather fed up with ministerial pronouncements on reserves when all they seem to do is increase our funding uncertainty by constantly fiddling with funding schemes which , in risk terms, would require us to hold more reserves.

I also look forward to seeing how the new business rates retention proposals will be formulated to see whether it will be a useful funding stream, or just another uncertainty we have to make a (larger) provision for.

So yes, it’s been good in parts. Overall though, I feel less confident about the future than a year ago. But who knows the future? Keep up the resilience 151s.

Frank Wilson is
strategic director for resources at
West Oxfordshire District Council
and Cotswold District Council.

Polling station photo (cropped): Paul Wilkinson, Flickr.