Decision details

Decision(s):

Reason(s) for the Decision(s):

It is proposed to increase the core commercial prices (for room hire, activities etc) by approximately 6% to help increase the revenue generated from commercial services.

Some purely commercial lines, such as stage equipment hire and commercial listing guides, have been benchmarked against operations in the region and re-aligned to better reflect current commercial rates, in addition some new items have been added due to demand and to increase revenue generation

The core library charges for book reservations and late fees are not planned to be increased so that library use isn’t discouraged (as it is still in the recovery phase after the pandemic), and due to the nature of the scale of the charges (either 1p or 12p per day) a small percentage charge would not be applicable.  Some larger % increases are for additional services, such as photocopying or printing, however the actual fiscal increase is 5p for these services.

One pivotal change will be the proposed increase in the online booking fee at the Atkinson by 50p, this has not been increased for over 4 years, and will still be significantly less than other providers (Liverpool Empire at £3.95 per booking), in the last 12 months we have had over 39,000 people book online therefore this would generate nearly £20k of gross revenue for the Atkinson.

We believe the alignment of the charges to more commercially viable rates will increase revenue without decreasing demand. 

Alternative Options Considered and Rejected

Maintaining the current pricing structure will negatively impact on the ability of the service to cover costs of provision