Local Authority Building Control Accounting Guidance for England and Wales (Fully Revised Second Edition 2010)

CIPFA has updated its building control accounting guidance to reflect the Building (Local Authority Charges) Regulations 2010, which come into force from 1 April 2010. The new regulations build on the principle of devolving charge setting to local authorities in order to provide more flexibility, accuracy, fairness and transparency in the charging regime.

This publication applies to all local authorities within England and Wales responsible for the provision of building control services.

This updated guidance for local authorities has been produced to support the new regulations, in consultation with the Department for Communities and Local Government, who have policy responsibility for building control within Government, and other key stakeholders.

This publication contains:

• a summary of the principles of the new regulations guidance on what costs should be reflected in the building regulations chargeable service and how these costs can be isolated from other building control activities, in order to calculate charges that fully recover (as far as practical) the cost of the building regulations chargeable service guidance on the calculation of standard and individually determined charges for providing services in relation to the chargeable functions and chargeable advice
• advice on how local authorities can monitor the recovery of the building regulations chargeable costs, the use of earmarked reserves and governance arrangements
• advice on how predetermined productive hourly rates for the two activities, chargeable and non-chargeable, can be used to provide useful management information for local authorities in making informed decisions to keep building regulations chargeable costs within income
• illustrative worked examples.

This publication is available as a bookmarked PDF. Details of licensing arrangements for other categories of purchaser, which includes those organisations operating shared service arrangements, are available from CIPFA's Publications Department.