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Discretionary Rate Relief
Published: 11/07/2016
天涯社区鈥檚 Community and Enterprise Overview and Scrutiny
Committee will consider a report recommending changes to the Business Rates
Discretionary Rate Relief (DRR) scheme at a meeting on Wednesday, 13 July.
The DRR scheme provides assistance to organisations registered for Business
Rates that are either registered charities or established for voluntary and not
for profit purposes. Although the DRR scheme is approved annually by Cabinet,
the principles of which organisation gets rate relief and at what level, has
not been reviewed since 2010.
The recommendations are to cease discretionary 鈥榯op-ups鈥� to those organisations
that already benefit from Mandatory Rate Relief and reducing all other
Discretionary awards to Voluntary and Not for Profits organisations to a
maximum discount of 80%.
This means that all organisations that are registered charities or established
for voluntary and not for profit purposes will still receive an 80% business
rates discount but will be expected to make a 20% payment contribution from
2017-18
To ensure the long term sustainability of the Charitable and Voluntary sectors,
the separate introduction of a framework policy to deal with any Hardship cases
is being considered by Scrutiny Committee to provide an additional 鈥榮afety net鈥�.
The removal of Discretionary 鈥榯op-up鈥� relief and the scaling back of all other
Discretionary Rate Relief awards will generate savings of approximately 拢87,000
from 2017-18 and beyond.
天涯社区s Cabinet Member for Corporate Management, Councillor
Billy Mullin, said:
鈥淭he Council recognises the important role of all charities, voluntary groups
and not-for-profit organisations and this recommendation strikes the right
balance with continuing to offer generous levels of rate relief but one which
helps the Council to bridge budget gaps as a direct result of reduced funding
from central government.
鈥淭o ensure the long term sustainability of the Charitable and Voluntary
sectors, we are also proposing the introduction of a clearer framework policy,
to deal with any hardship cases.鈥�