KCC Gypsy & Traveller Pitch Allocation Policy - Service Charge Guide

These guidelines have been developed to help users gain a better understanding on the model and are by no means exhaustive

Staff Costs

  • What does ‘Staff Costs’ cover? - This is to cover the cost of your Site Manager, Caretaker or Scheme Manager. Other costs for those staff, including pension costs
  • Insurance - Arranging buildings insurance for our properties. Note: This does not include home contents insurance. You are responsible for arranging this to cover your personal belongings
  • The cost of billing and collecting service charges and arranging for the recovery of unpaid charges preparing, submitting and circulating service charge statements to tenants, ensuring that funds are used correctly, engaging and supervising maintenance staff arranging and managing for annual safety or service checks ensuring the building complies with all relevant fire safety and health & safety legislation making sure that all insurance on the building is up to date communicating with tenants on site responding to any tenant enquiries
  • Site visits, staff time in answering questions and dealing with general site matters
  • Staff training costs
  • Computer systems, telephone systems and website costs
  • Office staff wages and office expenses
  • Administration fees - Managing and monitoring the maintenance contractors for services we provide on plots and shared areas
  • What does the charge ‘Administration Fee’ covers? - This is charged to all rental customers. The fee covers the administration costs of the services we provide

Service Fees

  • Legal fees - This is where we have incurred legal fees that we are entitled to recover as a service charge
  • Management fee - Managing our estates, such as carrying out site visits, dealing with queries and requests, and arranging contracts for services
  • Onsite staff - Employing any caretakers, cleaners, concierge, night-time cover, residential managers or any other staff based at an estate or block
  • To provide a prescribed out of hours emergency service outside of office hours. This will be staffed from 5pm till 11pm during the week and from 9am till 9pm at weekends via the KCC Contact Centre (03000 414141 / 419191)

Buildings and Grounds Maintenance

  • Grounds maintenance - This charge covers our contractors’ fee to look after the outside areas of estates, such as gardening, mowing grassed areas, road sweeping and litter picking. Other costs to maintain the estate may also appear here, such as the cost of dealing with abandoned vehicles
  • Trees - The cost of looking after trees, including periodic inspections, pruning and surgery will appear here. What does the charge ‘Tree Works’ cover? - This covers all communal tree pruning and felling
  • Playgrounds - The cost of inspecting and maintaining play equipment in shared areas
  • The maintenance and repair, and improvements of: – Communal repairs - Carrying out day-to-day responsive repairs in shared areas the exterior, perimeter and shared fencing, structure, roofs, foundations, window frames, guttering, communal drains and pipes and common areas, also insurance of the building and the cost of management
  • Bulk refuse removal - The cost of dealing with fly tipping, dead horses and theremoval /removing of dumped bulky items from site and access roads leading onto and off site will all appear under this heading
  • The maintenance, repair and improvements of communal areas. Carrying out day-to-day responsive repairs in shared areas the exterior, perimeter and shared fencing, structure, roofs, foundations, window frames, guttering, communal drains and pipes and common areas, also insurance of the building the cost of management and examination costs

Services and Infrastructure

  • Sewerage plants and pumps - Servicing and maintaining sewage plants and pumps, and surface water pumps. Tankering waste water/sewage/surface water and servicing and repairing any water treatment plant, water pipes and electric cables trunking around the site running in and out of utility blocks and electrical and water substations. Including the servicing and emptying out of petrol interceptors on sites
  • Lighting and electricity, Providing outside lighting at estates and blocks, and on estate roads. It also includes the cost of providing lighting in shared areas and includes the electricity costs of running all electrical equipment such as water sewerage, water treatment plants and pumps
  • Pest control - The cost of eradicating pest from blocks or estates will be shown here
  • Electrical and lighting testing - Testing, repairing and replacing electrical systems, including street lighting where this is not provided by the local council. This will include the cost of replacing bulbs where this is not carried out by the cleaning contractors

Invoiced on Account

  • Invoiced on account - This is the sum of money we ask from you at the beginning of each year to pay for the services we anticipate providing in the year ahead.

Asset Management

  • Reserve fund - Also known as a “sinking fund” - A fund you may pay into to build a reserve sum of money. This is used to pay for more expensive work to shared areas of your property, such as replacing a roof or repairing a lift or the cost of cyclical works. A contribution towards this via the service charge, the purpose is to build up a fund to pay for future larger scale works, such as repainting/redecorating the whole building or replacing window frames. This means licence holders will not face such a large one off bill when the work becomes necessary. The licence holder will not receive any of this contribution back if they leave their pitch. The purpose of such funds is to build up a sum of money to cover the cost of irregular and expensive works such as external decorations, structural repairs or utilityblock replacement. Reserve funds should earn interest because they are generally held for a longer period than day-to-day service charges, which goes some way to meet increasing budget costs. A sinking fund is a contribution for work that is only carried out every few years, such as redecorating the block or refurbishment of the utility block, windows or roof. (Contributions to the reserve fund are generally not repayable)
  • Contribution to Major Works - Where cyclical or major works have been undertaken and a sinking fund is in place, this heading will be used to show the contribution from the sinking fund to the cost of the works. Where there are sufficient funds available, the contribution will equal the full cost of the works and any additional management fee charged. If the funds do not cover the full cost of the works and/or the fee, the funds available to contribute to the works and/or fee will be shown. In such cases you will also be issued with a demand for any difference
  • Cyclical works management fee - On larger or more complicated works, we may employ specialist consultants to do some or all of this work. In such cases, their fee will usually be shown under this heading unless it is included within the general fee