Increase in user-pays for consent services

We want to ensure that the amount those who pay for consent services is in line with our Revenue and Financing Policy, which states that 60-80% of the cost of consenting services overall is to be paid by the user and the rest is supported by general ratepayers.

• This year (2024/25) we are anticipating 56% of the costs of the consents service will be covered by revenue from users (consent applicants). The Long-Term Plan 2024-34 budget for Year 2 is based on achieving a 66% cost recovery in 2025/26.
• To do this, the hourly charge for consent services needs to increase by, on average, 14.1% to better reflect actual costs. This increase would be covered by those people using this service.

What does this proposal look like?

In 2025/26, we’re proposing to increase consent hourly charges by an average 14.1%. If we do implement this change, we will move closer to achieving user revenue levels specified in the Long-Term Plan.

The other option

An alternative is to reach our intended targets in a staged way over time. As an example, this could see us increase hourly charges by an average of 4.7% in 2025/26, with further increases in following years.

• If we implement this change in a staged way, our revenue from user-pays would not be enough to meet the 66% target.
• This means we wouldn’t be back within the policy range in 2025/26. This means general ratepayers would continue to off-set the costs for this service while we work to move within the targets set out in the Revenue and Financing Policy.

Hourly charges for staff have not increased since 2021. The costs indicated above are not the salaries for these officers and include all overheads. The proposed costs are based on the actual cost of the work we did over the last two years.

The proposed increase is an average increase across all consent staff charges rather than a blanket percentage increase for every individual staff charge.

For 2025/26, we are proposing to increase the hourly charges only for the consents-related services. This does not affect any other hourly charges, such as compliance visits, which will be reviewed in coming years.

Examples of changes to hourly charges

The tables below captures examples of the possible cost impact of changing staff hourly charges.

It is important to note: the costs provided in the table below are based on average costs. Actual costs may be different because consent costs can vary significantly depending on a variety of factors, including:

• the quality of the application
• the receiving environment, and
• the scale and significance of the project.

These elements can all influence the time, resources, advice and assessments required, resulting in variations to overall costs.