Agenda item

74/17             

The Council considered a report that provided an update of the overall financial position and detailed the formal proposals of the Executive to achieve a balanced Budget.

In his introduction, the Deputy Leader of Council particularly highlighted that the Strategy had already been considered by both the Executive and the Audit Committee at recent meetings.  In addition to the presented agenda report containing an additional recommendation (part 6), the Deputy Leader also advised that the Audit Committee had asked for the Council to acknowledge that the recommendations relating to the CCLA Funds were not without risk.  That being said, the Committee had still recommended approval of these proposals.

In the ensuing debate, the following points were raised:-

(a)   With regard to the proposals to invest in CCLA Funds, it was confirmed that external advice had been sought, with the opinion being that these constituted a valid investment for the Council to make;

(b)   It was recognised that a number of other local authorities had funds invested with the CCLA.  These authorities included: Devon County Council; Mid Devon District Council and Exeter City Council;

(c)    With regard to the Icelandic Bank issue, the Section 151 Officer confirmed that she would provide a detailed response to an interested Member outside of this meeting;

(d)   The Audit Committee Chairman confirmed that the Committee had welcomed the proposal to extend the list of potential counterparties.  It was also the hope of the Committee that the projected additional income of £25,000, that could be generated through this proposal, would prove to be a conservative estimate;

(e)   Some Members expressed their view that monies would be more appropriately invested in social and affordable housing opportunities instead of with the CCLA.  In reply, the Leader informed that he remained committed to investigating such opportunities and those monies proposed to be invested into the CCLA Diversified Income Fund would be readily accessible at minimal penalty to the Council.

It was then:

RESOLVED

1.     That the prudential indicators and limits for 2018/19 to 2020/21 (as contained within Appendix A of the presented agenda report) be approved;

2.     That the Minimum Revenue Position (MRP) statement that set out the Council’s Policy on MRP (as outlined within Appendix A of the presented agenda report) be approved;

3.     That the Treasury Management Strategy 2018/19 and the treasury prudential indicators 2018/19 to 2020/21 (as outlined within Appendix B of the presented agenda report) be approved;

4.     That the Investment Strategy 2018/19 (as detailed at Appendix C of the presented agenda report); the detailed criteria (as outlined at Appendix D of the presented agenda report); and the Counterparty List (as set out at Appendix E of the presented agenda report) be approved;

5.     That approval be given to investing £500,000 into the CCLA Local Authority Property Fund and £1 million into the CCLA Diversified Income Fund (as per Appendix H of the presented agenda report); and

6.     That the proposal to externally borrow from the Public Works Loans Board for the Leisure Investment (as detailed in Section 5 of the presented agenda report) be approved.