Minutes

5        INFORMATION GOVERNANCE FRAMEWORK UPDATE – The Director: Governance and Communities submitted a report seeking consideration and approval of updates to several information governance policy schedules.

The Information Governance Framework comprised a series of individual policies which collectively set out how the council would manage and secure its information and personal data assets in compliance with best practice requirements including, notably, the UK General Data Protection Regulation / Data Protection Act 2018 and the Freedom of Information Act.

As part of an ongoing programme of policy reviews, a series of updates were required to three information governance policy schedules, specifically the:

·                 Access to Information Policy

·                 CCTV Policy

·                 Information Charging Policy

The report set out the proposed changes to the three policies.

Resolved – That the proposed changes, as set out in the report and accompanying appendices, be approved.

6        NATIONAL NON-DOMESTIC RATE DISCRETIONARY RELIEF APPLICATIONS – The Director: Governance and Communities submitted a report seeking a decision on the level of National Non-Domestic Rate (NNDR) discretionary relief to be awarded to eligible ratepayers in North Lincolnshire.

The arrangements for the collection of National Non-Domestic Rates (NNDR) were set nationally through legislation.  The legislation made provision for councils to grant relief to a range of non-domestic properties in a range of defined circumstances.  This included, for example, small business relief, charitable relief and empty property relief.  Some relief was mandated and must be granted; other relief was discretionary.  The council also had a Hardship Relief scheme for cases of exceptional hardship.

The application of these provisions for granting NNDR relief helped enable the council to deliver its council plan, specifically the priorities of Growing the Economy and Enabling Communities to Flourish.

Under the current regime of part localisation of NNDR, the council funded a proportion of both mandatory and discretionary reliefs it gave.

The report considered the findings of a recent review of reliefs provided to charitable organisations and recommended revisions to the reliefs.

Resolved – That the revised levels of rate relief to charitable organisations, as set out in the appendix to the report, be approved.