There are two aspects to monitoring and managing section 106 legal agreements, these being:

• Financial monitoring and management of the monies associated with receiving the income, and;
• Physical monitoring.

This Council has modeled the approach we are taking very closely on the best practice advice. Given that the systems we are looking to put in place and the work that will be undertaken in providing this improved service reflects the TDC approach, the incurred costs and charges are equally similar.

Financial Monitoring

Based on the current hourly rate of the relevant officer would be as follows:

• £39 (hourly rate including overheads) with 7 hours average officer time handling the contribution following up with the spending service etc - £273

Note this fee is the minimum level that would be applied to any legal agreement clause, which would be charged to unilateral public open space agreements which are relatively straight forward. Even for these simple agreements, these will still require monitoring, chasing, and a proper audit trail in terms of expenditure of the contributions received.

Physical Monitoring

Based on the current hourly rate including overheads:

• Checking development triggers (i.e. number of houses built) - assuming a commencement/completion are checked on site an average 10 times a year = £390

• A minimum monitoring period of one year should be applied. If it can be shown that monitoring will be for a greater defined period the charge would be increased proportionally for the number of years the monitoring costs will need to reflect this.

• For those obligations which need monitoring indefinitely a minimum 10 years should be incorporated into the equation with a quarterly monitor only i.e. 1 clause to be monitored indefinitely would incur a charge of £ 39 x the number of quarterly visits over 10 years (40) = £1560.

WORKED EXAMPLES

1. Public Open Space - contribution

The Council would enter into a legal agreement to secure the cost of the public open space base on the size of dwelling multiplied by the number of units provided on sites below 1.5 hectares in size.

A monitoring charge would be applied at £273.

2. Housing Development 5 dwellings

A development of five dwellings built over two years this would require a legal agreement to address the following issues:

• Public open space, and
• Affordable housing provision

The monitoring charges for this would be; the standard monitoring charge for each item i.e. £273 X 2 = £546 plus physical monitoring of housing element over two years i.e. £390 x 2 years = £780. Thereby the total monitoring charge applied would cost £1326.