Issue - meetings

The Executive Member for Financial Sustainability introduced the report, which was the annual report to the Committee on Section 106 at East Herts Council. 

The Executive Member for Financial Sustainability said that report itself provided an update on East Herts Section 106 financial contribution identification, collection and allocation plus information on the 2023/24 Infrastructure Funding Statement (which was included as Appendix A) and feedback from the Internal Audit undertaken last year (which was included as Appendix B), as well as information on other Section 106 related income generation from monitoring fees and S106 information requests.

The Executive Member for Financial Sustainability drew Members attention to paragraph 3.19 of the report, which gave an overview of historic Section 106 contribution collection and allocations from 1^st April 1996 to 31^st March 2024 – with details of the total amounts of contributions received, spent, allocated and unallocated, and paragraph 3.23 which provided more detailed information on the total amounts collected and allocated over the last five years, and an update on the contributions collected and allocated in the current financial year (from 1^st April 2024 to the end of September 2024). He said that figures could be seen at paragraph 3.26.

The Executive Member for Financial Sustainability said that Members would be aware that East Herts Council was bound by Legislation to produce and publish an annual summary of income and expenditure of the financial Section 106 contributions collected by the Council as the annual Infrastructure Funding Statement (IFS), which was required to be published on the council’s website before 31 December each year.

The Executive Member for Financial Sustainability said that the IFS attached at Appendix A was the 5^th to be produced by East Herts and highlighted the following to Members:

·            New Section 106 Agreements - There were eleven new Section 106 Agreements signed in 20232/24 providing £1,171,381.00 in identified East Herts council financial contributions including £11,700 monitoring contributions and 23 new affordable housing units.

·            Historic Contribution information – page 7 of the IFS provided further details on total income, expenditure, and allocated / unallocated contributions from 1^st April 10996 up to 31^st March 2023.

·            2023/24 contributions collected - a total of £5,304,487.68 was received from 86 contributions triggered for payment from 11 individual Section 106 Agreements.

·             2023/24 contributions allocated - a total of £4,859,523.51 was allocated and spent on 21 individual projects or identified uses from 70 individual contributions from 29 Section 106 Agreements.

·            In addition, the IFS gave details of the various council projects and services funded with capital and revenue contributions, and the seven external projects across the district supported with Section 106 in the financial year 2023/24.

The Executive Member for Financial Sustainability said that the Internal Audit final report (which was attached at Appendix B) was very positive, with ‘substantial assurance’ that there was effective controls and a robust framework in place for the collection and allocation of Section 106 contributions. He said that this was the highest grading and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 252