Charging policy - Policies and strategies
- Description
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The annual income that the Council receives in the form of fees and charges for the services provided to its customers amounts, in total, to a considerable sum and makes a significant contribution towards reducing the Revenue Budget.
Due to this and the impact that its charges may have on service users, it is important that there is a clear policy with regard to charging.
Not all services provided to customers are charged for. Many are provided free of charge or in some cases a charge is made but this does not recover the full cost of providing the service or facility.
There are various reasons for deciding to make a charge and for determining what that charge will be. The charge to be made will not always be determined purely by cost recovery considerations. In many cases charges can be used to assist in the achievement of the Council’s corporate objectives, for example by encouraging people to take part in a socially beneficial activity by charging fees that they can afford, which may not necessarily fully recover costs.
This policy sets out what the Council intends to achieve through the charges it makes and the criteria which it will use to determine the level of charge for individual services.