ROBUST REVIEWS. INFORMED DECISIONS. STRONGER COUNCILS.
FEES AND CHARGES
Helping councils maximise income through evidence-based reviews and smart benchmarking.
What We Offer
We support councils to strengthen financial sustainability by reviewing fees and charges through a rigorous, evidence-led approach. Our work combines detailed benchmarking, cost analysis and policy review to identify opportunities, challenge assumptions and support confident decision-making.
Fees and Charges Reviews
Our Fees & Charges Reviews help councils identify significant, cashable additional income while improving clarity, consistency and transparency in charging decisions.
Delivered collaboratively with finance teams, service managers and senior officers, our evidence-based approach combines benchmarking, full cost analysis and demand insight to identify real, deliverable opportunities.
For many councils, this includes seven-figure income potential, with a substantial proportion typically achievable within the next financial year.
Alongside immediate financial impact, our reviews leave councils better equipped for the future by strengthening the evidence base, improving confidence in decision-making and building internal capability.
Benchmarking Tool
Our benchmarking portal provides councils with instant access to comparative fees and charges data across a wide range of services, giving you a clear evidence base to inform local decision-making.
The portal enables finance and service teams to compare charging levels against peers, identify outliers, explore ranges and test assumptions. It is designed to be intuitive and flexible, supporting quick analysis to inform business cases, budget proposals and policy discussions.
Used as a standalone tool, the portal provides rapid insight into where opportunities or risks may sit. Used alongside our Fees and Charges Reviews, it underpins challenge and recommendations with consistent, transparent data and helps embed an evidence-led approach across the organisation.
The result is smarter conversations about pricing, stronger assurance for decision-makers, and better-informed choices on income and sustainability.
Local Government Reorganisation
Local Government Reorganisation is one of the most complex change programmes a council can face. It brings together different cultures, policies, systems and ways of working - often under significant time pressure and scrutiny.
Getting the foundations right early is critical to creating a stable, effective new authority.
Income is a critical part to LGR. We work with councils to align fees, charges and income from the different councils that are merging together. We identify policy differences in the legacy councils and identify the impact this has.
We model options for aligning fees, charges and income and provide this detailed analysis at varying stages of the LGR process; from implementation planning through to post transition alignment.
Our Review Statistics
£1.2m
AVERAGE OF £1.2M PA PER 150K OF POPULATION FOR UNITARY AND COUNTY COUNCILS
£2m
AVERAGE OF OVER £2M PA PER 150K OF POPULATION FOR LONDON BOROUGHS
£10m
IDENTIFIED OVER £10M FOR A LONDON BOROUGH AND £7.5M FOR A UNITARY
£78m
£78M IDENTIFIED FOR CLIENTS IN THE LAST 12 MONTHS
About Us
Fees & Charges is a partnership between Commercial Gov and Lyon Local Gov specifically designed to support councils to maximise income through their fees and charges.
Fees and Charges have worked with over 40 Councils identifying substantial increases in income for all of our clients.
The focused work of Fees and Charges builds on the wider experience of the founders Ken Lyon and David Elverson. Ken worked in Local Government for 17 years at large city unitary councils and finishing as a senior officer. David has supported over 100 councils in developing commercially through his consultancy business.
The growing team now brings wider expertise and insight all focused on identifying income through a robust, tried, tested and accelerated process.
Our Clients
We have had the privilege of working with numerous councils across the UK, providing expert support in fees and charges reviews, benchmarking, and financial strategy development. Below are some of those.
