Fees and Admin Charges - Public forum - Planning Advisory Service (PAS)
Fees and Admin Charges
Victoria Hinchliff Walker, modified 4 Months ago.
Fees and Admin Charges
New Member Post: 1 Join Date: 20/07/23 Recent PostsHi, I strongly suspect that most local planning authorities are in the process of trying to squeeze income out of anything and everything currently, but we are largely constrained by what we can and cannot do in terms of fees and charges by the Planning Regs. Applications such as Listed Building Consents and Tree Works Apps (for trees that are either TPO'd or in Con. Area) are free and recent consultation by government suggests this won't be changing soon, but I am also aware that some authorities charge "admin fees" on these type of applications.
For example East Riding charge an admin fee for anyone submitting a Tree Works App that isn't via the planning portal (by post or email) as this requires additional administrative duties beyond normal.
This appears very sensible, but is there anything anywhere that states whether such admin charges can be used, or not used? Are there any legal or regulatory restrictions on what constitutes an admin charge and how much could be charged for such?
Interested to hear if any other authorities charge for LBC's or tree apps in any way, shape or form?
Rachael Vamplew, modified 4 Months ago.
RE: Fees and Admin Charges
New Member Posts: 4 Join Date: 12/08/13 Recent PostsHi Victoria,
We have recently introduced discretionary fees for some services - i.e. paper submissions, cheque payments and handling of invalids - Planning Discretionary Fees
Broadly speaking the intention was to be more of a deterrant to admin heavy submissions and cost recovery of those additional requirements. Also, emphasising the burden of poor quality submissions, leading to additional work handling invalids.
Happy to discuss further if you wish. Feel free to drop me an email - Rachael.leggett@boston.gov.uk
Alastair Nicholson, modified 4 Months ago.
RE: Fees and Admin Charges
New Member Posts: 10 Join Date: 19/10/11 Recent PostsThis raises the same age-old problem; to charge a fee you must have a legal basis for doing so.
The power to levy a charge for discretionary services is provided by s.93 of the Local Government Act 2003 (Power to charge for discretionary services). So, you can charge for providing planning advice, etc. If you can choose to use the service, or not, the service is discretionary, and you are covered.
The Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, Deemed Applications, Requests and Site Visits) (England) Regulations 2012 (as amended) comprehensively sets out the planning application fees and does not provide a provision for keeping an "admin fee." The wording in the regulation is: (5) Any fee paid pursuant to this regulation shall be refunded if the application is rejected as invalid.
As keeping an admin fee is not discretionary you can’t rely on s.93.
I have asked many Authorities who charge an "admin" fee what legislation they are relying on and to date no-one has managed a convincing answer. So morally it makes sense, but legally it’s a bit dubious.
Everyone charging to return invalid applications seems to be operating on the basis that the risk of a Judicial Review is slight and so the end justifies the means.