To ask the Minister of Finance what work has been done by Land and Property Services with local councils to develop a robust rate forecasting model in order to assess potential loss of rates income in future years as a result of the economic impact of COVID-19.

Land & Property Services (LPS) already has a well-established annual rate forecasting methodology in place. This has been developed in collaboration with District Councils and builds upon the lessons learnt from the last recession over a decade ago.

The methodology includes a detailed analysis of the next year’s estimated revenue gains from growth in the Council’s property tax base and the corresponding potential revenue losses arising from vacant property and bad debt write-off. This is based on LPS data trends and local knowledge from Councils on planning and building control profiles and details of possible business closures and vacancies.

This year, both LPS and Council efforts have been jointly focussed on assessing the impacts of Covid-19 on next year’s Council funding by undertaking additional and more frequent modelling, and scenario framing of the potential Council revenue losses as the economic impacts of the pandemic continue to emerge and be understood.

Following the savings delivered to businesses from the non-domestic regional rate cut announced in the Executive’s 2020/21 Budget, I am keen that the wider impact of the pandemic, and district rate decisions taken on foot of that backdrop, doesn’t result in a rate hike at District Council level in 2021/22 which would undo that saving for business. To that end, my officials are working with counterparts in the Department for Communities to look at options to provide Councils with both greater flexibilities and options in relation to the setting of rates in the post-Covid-19 landscape.