, Local Government and Housing Committee
Local Government Finance (Wales) Bill: Evidence from the Minister for Finance and Local Government
Yes. I'll just ask officials to introduce themselves.
, Finance Committee
Financial Implications of the Local Government Finance (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Yes, it's to try and give the sector more confidence. So, we work really closely with and through our grants centre of excellence. So, I'm hoping for things to be improved that way, but what I'd also like to see is local government taking the same approach…
, Finance Committee
Financial Implications of the Local Government Finance (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Yes. Totally separate to this Bill now, but we've been doing some work particularly with the third sector on grants, because one of the things the third sector always says is that they need longer term certainty for grants. One-year grants just put them in a…
, Finance Committee
Financial Implications of the Local Government Finance (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Yes. If the committee wants something more or different, obviously we will try our best to oblige, but we were actually, between committees, talking about the way in which we provide support. So, actually, only some of it is through regulations in any case…
, Finance Committee
Financial Implications of the Local Government Finance (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Yes. It is a difficult one, because you could give examples of how a power might be used in the future, but then it would be entirely theoretical and it might not be based on a policy that the Government even wants to take forward. So, again, turning to…
, Finance Committee
Financial Implications of the Local Government Finance (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
So, the success of the Bill in many ways will be about the impact that those more frequent revaluations have on the fairness of the system, keeping it up to date and the taxpayers' experience in terms of paying and being billed for the right level of tax and…
, Finance Committee
Financial Implications of the Local Government Finance (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
So, I mentioned the review work that is being undertaken at the moment in regard to the 53 different categories, and it is complex work and, you know, we're only part way through that at the moment, so there, I think, might be some changes that come out of…
, Finance Committee
Financial Implications of the Local Government Finance (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Yes. And we'll need to think about what, if any, transitional support is available, not just for households, but also for local authorities as well. And, again, that all depends on which system we decide to take forward. And, of course, these are for periods…
, Finance Committee
Financial Implications of the Local Government Finance (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
So, your original point is a really important one, which is worth emphasising as well, about the exercise not being about raising more money overall. Because when we've done our focus groups and our other engagement with the public, we do know that there is…
, Finance Committee
Financial Implications of the Local Government Finance (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Yes.
, Finance Committee
Financial Implications of the Local Government Finance (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
No.
, Finance Committee
Financial Implications of the Local Government Finance (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
I would have to ask the IFS to run that, or our officials can run that, actually, as well.
, Finance Committee
Financial Implications of the Local Government Finance (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
So, lots of questions there. I would start off by saying that our phase 2 consultation finished yesterday for council tax reform. So, that looked particularly at the scale and the pace of reform, and it set out three potential examples, or models, that we…
, Finance Committee
Financial Implications of the Local Government Finance (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Yes, so, I am confident in the figures and I know that the VOA's evidence to the Local Government and Housing Committee recently also displayed that high level of confidence in those figures and in the delivery of the work as well, so we don't have any…
, Finance Committee
Financial Implications of the Local Government Finance (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
It is. You can do an awful lot with it, obviously, but we'd have to come up with proposals and then undertake the impact assessment work and understand all of that, but it's a good tool for the future.
, Finance Committee
Financial Implications of the Local Government Finance (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
So, at the moment, we're not in the space of developing proposals that might flow from the legislation. I think that will be the next step following, but we'd have to do a lot of thinking. You could look to potentially our thinking around the free ports, for…
, Finance Committee
Financial Implications of the Local Government Finance (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
So, if we were to make any changes, it would have to be in relation to rateable value, use or location, because, as I say and as I've mentioned, those are the kind of fixed things that we can be confident identify that particular business, but we don't have…
, Finance Committee
Financial Implications of the Local Government Finance (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
So, this is something that would be really wholly delivered by local authorities, but it's certainly something that I think that they welcome in terms of having that local discretion. But I'll just check if officials want to reflect on any discussions they…
, Finance Committee
Financial Implications of the Local Government Finance (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
No, it's addressing a similar issue, but for the local tax system, rather than the Welsh taxes.
, Finance Committee
Financial Implications of the Local Government Finance (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Well, we want to reduce those opportunities for avoidance, because, obviously, it has an impact on the overall funding available for public services and so on, and people might be taking advantage or creating schemes whereby they are abusing the current…
, Finance Committee
Financial Implications of the Local Government Finance (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Apologies, I thought you were talking about charitable rate relief.
, Finance Committee
Financial Implications of the Local Government Finance (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
We think it's relatively marginal in its scope in terms of the requirements of new activities. It's really about addressing a gap that exists in the existing system with the existing activities. So, I think that that is—. We wouldn't expect for charitable…
, Finance Committee
Financial Implications of the Local Government Finance (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
There's already an administrative requirement on both businesses and local authorities in the existing system, in the sense that empty property relief for charities does require the ratepayer to make an application for it, and it also requires the local…
, Finance Committee
Financial Implications of the Local Government Finance (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
But also the contribution reminded me of another important part of the Bill, and that is around avoidance. So, we've been doing lots of work recently to tackle avoidance in a number of ways, but this Bill will help us do more of that in future and look to…
, Finance Committee
Financial Implications of the Local Government Finance (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Yes. We certainly—
