Report of the Executive Director, Commercialisation & S151 Officer.

The Chief accountant presented the report.

It was noted that as a result of the new Codes issued in late December 2017 (see section 1 of the report) after the last Governance & Audit Committee meeting, changes to the appendices previously approved that had occurred had been highlighted in red.  Additionally, the opportunity had been taken to update the tables in Appendix A to reflect the latest budget position being presented to Full Council on 22 February 2018.  For clarity, a summary of the changes had been highlighted in section 2 of the report.  One of the main changes highlighted was in relation to the role of the S151 Officer.  Changes to both Codes had extended the functions of this role particularly in respect of non-financial investments with security and portfolio liquidity when investing treasury funds being a priority.

The Chairman felt that the previous training session that Members attended had been quite interesting and had covered these changes.

Councillor Hewett referred to the paragraph under table 3 on Appendix A that indicated that the Council did not have a borrowing need within this reporting period but had noticed that the outlook had been different in the previous report presented to the Committee in December.  He had not been able to establish where this previous borrowing need had stemmed from and asked for an explanation as to where this money had gone and if the Council was confident that it would not appear again in the near future.  The Chief Accountant explained that as part of the budget process through committees, Members had asked for a £1m budget to be removed at the previous meeting due to it being an indicative amount for the Thetford Enterprise Partnership (TEP) with no determined project to support it.

Councillor Monument asked a question in relation to the number of days highlighted in red on page 123 of the agenda pack and asked if one day would make any difference.  Members were informed that the legislation had changed meaning ‘either’ 364 days ‘or’ 365 days; however, an extra word could be included as both sets of days were required in terms of treasury management.

Councillor Hewett asked why the amount in the earmarked reserves in table 4, page 101 of the agenda pack, was shown as an increase year on year until 2020/21.  The Chief Accountant explained that this had been set aside in relation to renewable energy business rates so that the Council did not become over-reliant on our significant business or in case of an appeal.  The Chairman said this would be the same for Doctors surgeries.

Subject to the aforementioned small amendment, it was

RECOMMENDED to Full Council that the following updated documents be approved:

a.     the Treasury Management Strategy 2018-19 to 2021-22 at Appendix A;

b.     the Minimum Revenue Provision (MRP) statement contained within Appendix A which sets out the Council’s policy on MRP;

c.      the Prudential Indicators and limits contained within Appendix A (Tables 1-9);

d.     the Investment Strategy 2018-19 (Appendix B) and the detailed criteria included in Appendix B1; and

e.     the Treasury Management Policy at Appendix B2.