Agenda item

A.39/17          

The Committee considered a report that sought to recommend that the Council approve the proposed Treasury Management and Investment Strategies together with their associated prudential indicators.

In his introduction, the lead Executive Member for Support Services informed that he had asked that the draft Strategy be presented to this Committee meeting prior to its consideration at the Special Council meeting on 29 March 2018.  Furthermore, the Committee was reminded that the draft Strategy had also been considered by the Executive at its meeting on 15 March 2018 (Minute E.72/18 refers).

In discussion, reference was made to:-

(a)    external investment advice.  A Member expressed his surprise and disappointment that the external investment advice obtained had not been put in writing.  In reply, the Section 151 Officer informed that Link Asset Services (the Council’s External Treasury Management advisors) would only highlight to the Council the range of products that were available and would then leave it to the Council to make the final decision on Treasury Management matters;

(b)    the proposal to invest £1.5 million in CCLA.  With regard to recommendation 5, it was confirmed that the intention would be to invest these monies in one lump sum since there was no benefit in investing this money in instalments;

(c)    the Icelandic Bank Investments.  Since the investment position had been stable for a number of years and 98% had already been repaid to the Council, the Committee requested that this paragraph now be removed from future reports.  However, should the position change in this respect, then the Committee was also of the view that a short sentence should be added to the next report thereafter;

(d)    the risks associated with investing £1.5 million in CCLA Funds.  A Member highlighted those risks outlined in Appendix D of the presented agenda report and he considered these to be a cause for concern.  In reply, officers stated that they had spoken to a number of other local authorities who had invested in CCLA Funds and were satisfied that they had undertaken as much due diligence as was practically possible.  Nonetheless, the Member advised that his concerns were such that he would be unable to support the report recommendations.  The remaining Committee Members did recognise that there were associated risks, but did not feel them to be so significant that they could not support the recommendations and an addition was PROPOSED and SECONDED to recommendation 5 as follows:

‘That the Committee support the proposal to invest £500,000 into CCLA Local Authority Property Fund (LAPF) and £1 million into the CCLA Diversified Income Fund (as per Appendix H of the presented agenda report).  Nevertheless, the Committee does acknowledge that this proposal is not without risk.

When put to the vote, this addition was declared CARRIED.

It was then:

RECOMMENDED

(NOTE: in accordance with Council Procedure Rule 15.6: ‘Right to Require Individual Vote to be recorded’, Cllr J T Pennington asked for his vote against this recommendation to be formally recorded).