Fingal leads the way in rates collection

FINGAL County Council is leading the country when it comes to the payment of rates with a 93 per cent collection rate.

The council’s chief executive Paul Reid revealed the figure during his management report to council members at its July meeting. 

Mr Reid said some councils have a collection rate of just 57 per cent and Fingal is held up as the example of best practice.

“We have a very good, thorough process on rates collection and a very good facility for people to work through us and get on to a payment scheme if there is a problem,” said Mr Reid. 

“I am very happy with the process we have and it is being used as the exemplar around the country.” Meanwhile, Fingal County Council is currently preparing its 2017 Budget. A presentation on the Budget Strategy for next year was made to the Corporate Policy Group last month. 

In addition, the public consultation process for the Local Property Tax is currently ongoing and the Local Adjustment Factor for 2017 will have to be decided at the September meeting. Mr Reid said he shared the frustrations of some councillors at the lateness of clarity from central government around funding for the coming year and explained that it was often because the national government budget process had to take place first.

Oliver Hunt, who was recently appointed as the council’s Director of Finance, presented councillors with a Finance Report in which he stated that council has spent 48 per cent of its 2016 budget of €214,177,000 to the end of June.