NORTH YORKSHIRE COUNCIL

 

21 MAY 2025

 

STATEMENT OF EXECUTIVE MEMBER FOR FINANCE AND ASSETS

 

Council Tax & Business Rates

 

Members will appreciate that I spend much of my time lamenting the Council’s finances and the need for savings. While that remains true I wanted to bring an update on the important work that is done behind the scenes that we don’t always appreciate but we certainly hear about when things go wrong.

 

The Revenues team issued 306,178 Council Tax bills and 33,033 Business Rate bills in March 2025. 13,336 of the Council Tax bills also included a letter about their benefit entitlement saving separate postage costs. All council tax, business rates and associated benefit letters were despatched on 10 & 11 March as scheduled which gave the required notice to ask for the important first payment on 1 April 2025.

 

I would remind Members that we were still operating with seven legacy systems this year, all of which work in different ways. This was also the first year of:-

·         second home council tax charges from 1 April 2025 which is generating considerable queries, challenges and additional work;

·         a new combined mayoral authority precept;

·         new Scarborough & Harrogate Town Council precepts to include and explain; and

·         the reduction of retail relief on business rates from 75% to 40%.

 

A New Single Revenue and Benefits System

 

Whilst all of the above was going on, plans for the implementation of a new single system were being progressed.We are upgrading our Council Tax, Business Rates and Housing Benefits systems between 2nd May and the end of June 2025. We will be merging seven legacy systems into one consistent system for everyone in North Yorkshire. To do this, we will need to turn off our systems, staggering the closedowns over seven weeks.

 

During this period customers will still be able to submit requests, however, we will be unable to action any changes. We will process requests as quickly as we can from end of June 2025 when our new system launches. Most people will be unaffected, and our customers do not need to do anything while we make these changes.

 

Upgrading our systems means we will be able to offer more integrated and holistic support, combining services that were previously provided separately by districts, boroughs, and the county council. Using one system will help us support our customers and provide a more responsive and streamlined experience.  

 

A New Finance System

 

As well as a new Revenues and Benefits system work is well underway for the implementation of the new finance system that was approved for procurement last year. The new system will replace our aging Oracle system which is approaching end of life and presents an opportunity to rebuild some of the processes that were sub-optimal following local government reorganisation.

 

 

The new SAP system is planned to go live from April 26 and will enable increased automation of our financial transactions, streamlining integration of service-related systems and reporting. The improved functionality will in turn support financial management across the council – which is critical given the financial challenges we are facing.

 

Funding Reform

 

As we are all now aware, the government's plans for local government finance are likely to mean some tough choices for us in the months and years ahead. Much has been delivered since vesting day but savings will need to go further and deeper. There are still opportunities on the back of unitarization and we will make sure we squeeze every drop from this work but rethinking priorities and ways of working across all service areas must feature in our future plans. Ensuring future financial sustainability against a backdrop of reducing funding and increasing cost pressures means every £ counts, and prioritisation and value for money will be key.

 

Capital Projects

 

Council will also be aware that have experienced some significant challenges on some capital projects and my attention is firmly on the governance of such projects so we can be confident we have the right skills and capacity and accountability to ensure robust contract management and strong delivery where we choose to invest. There are, however, some strong headwinds that we, along with other organisations, will face given market turbulence so I anticipate that we will have some further financial pressures on capital that we will have to deal with.

 

Procurement

 

The new Procurement Regulations have been in place for nearly 3 months and to date there have been no operational issues reported, although it is still early days.  The new regulations do present some challenges, specifically around the increase in transparency requirements which creates extra administration and changes which impact some of the flexibilities which were previously in place around the award of low value contracts. It is encouraging to see the focus around small and medium enterprises and the voluntary and community sector with a further increased emphasis on taking account of social value in the award of contracts.  The Procurement Team is to work with the market throughout 2025/26 on understanding what additional value can be delivered and achieved through our contacts.

 

I am also pleased to announce that the Procurement & Contract Management Service are finalists for Procurement Team of the Year Award - Local and Housing.

The UK National GO Awards has been recognising and celebrating the outstanding achievements of all organisations and individuals involved in the procurement and delivery of public sector services for more than 20 years. We will know the winner on Wednesday 21 May 2025.

 

Property Rationalisation

 

I am pleased to report continued progress and successes on the property rationalisation programme. You may recall my last update where I reported the achievement of ongoing revenue savings in excess of £1m per annum and the delivery of capital receipts in excess of £8m from asset rationalisation projects and asset disposals. There have been a number of key updates since then:

 

Additional capital receipts of £5m have been realised from asset disposals, taking the total receipts generated since vesting day to more than £13m.

 

The Northallerton customer service centre has been successfully relocated from Stone Cross to the Treadmills site which opened on 28 April, with positive feedback from both staff and customers. The Stone Cross site has been marketed by the Council’s wholly owned property company, Align Property Partners, with offers due by end April. The marketing exercise proved successful, with 9 bids being received covering a range of uses for the site. The bids are currently being reviewed and assessed. In parallel, the majority of teams have now been relocated from the Stone Cross site to other council owned buildings. The CCTV service is scheduled to be relocated in August, which will provide a vacant site in readiness for the potential sale.

 

An industrial unit previously leased in by Integrated Passenger Transport Unit has been vacated with the service now co-locating with NY Highways at the Penny Pot Highways Depot. Saltergate Children’s Centre has also been released to the Academy occupying the same grounds. These moves will deliver savings of more than £50k per annum.

From the 1st April the newly formed Scarborough and Harrogate Town Councils will start to occupy surplus space in the Scarborough Town Hall and Harrogate Civic buildings.

 

A review of the Council’s property portfolio has been undertaken with a view to identify sites with future development potential so that they can be put forward for consideration in the Local Plan Call for Sites exercise. A significant number of opportunities have been identified which, if taken forward, could help to support the delivery of North Yorkshire’s future housebuilding targets as well as substantial levels of capital receipts. The relevant local Members will, of course, be notified in advance and able to make representations.

 

Carbon reduction measures on the property portfolio

 

In March we were notified that we were successful in securing £537k in Public Sector Decarbonisation grant to support the delivery of property carbon reduction measures at Nidderdale Leisure Centre. The scheme will deliver a whole building carbon reduction approach at the Leisure Centre, including the installation of air source heat pumps, fabric improvements and PV installation. The total cost of the project is estimated at £640k, with the council providing match funding of c£100k to the project. The proposals aim to reduce carbon emissions at the property by 60%.  

A further funding bid has been submitted to the Combined Authority Mayoral Renewables Fund to deliver carbon reduction measures across a number of other leisure properties. 

 

 

Windows roll-out progress

 

The Windows 11 rollout is on track to be completed by the end of September with over 50% deployed at the end of April. The outstanding persons from phases one and two are being targeting through May as their devices will cease to function at the end of June. Phase three consists of the remainder from the former districts (roughly 1800 users) and is being scheduled for June to September. This deployment serves two clear purposes, firstly to ensure that we are secure and supported on all our devices when Microsoft support for Windows 10 ceases in November, and secondly we will have a standardised laptop, set up and support model across the organisations helping to deliver our IT efficiency savings and increasing the ability for services to operate to single standards.

 

 

COUNCILLOR GARETH DADD