The Clause is important; it is about the power to charge—a point we touched on this morning. It states:

“The primary authority may charge the regulated person such fees as it considers to represent the costs reasonably incurred by it in the exercise of its functions under this Part”.

The provision recognises two important points. The first is that there are costs in acting as a primary authority. The primary authority is, in effect, acting as an advice broker, both to the business and to other enforcing authorities. Secondly, it helps to address the concern of some small business organisations that primary authorities might devote whatever expertise they have in regulatory enforcement to dealing solely with the concerns of multiple-site, rather than single-site businesses. In that respect, clause 31 makes provision for a primary authority to recover the costs of carrying out its functions under part 2 from the business for which it is acting as a primary authority.

The clause also provides that a primary authority may charge only for costs that it has reasonably incurred and does not, therefore, allow a primary authority to profit from its functions under part 2. Furthermore, where a primary authority chooses to charge a business, it must have regard to the relevant guidance issued by the LBRO under clause 33.

As I said, small businesses welcome the power to recover costs and can now confidently expect a local authority that takes on the primary authority role not to divert resources away from the advice and support that they look to it to provide. One might ask why businesses should pay for that service when they already pay their business rates. However, participation in the primary authorities scheme will give businesses access to a range of services over and above those available to businesses in general.

The provisions in clause 31 are important to the functioning of the primary authorities scheme and respond to some of the concerns about costs raised by Hertfordshire and other councils.