Issue - meetings

Report number:     CAB/WS/20/077

Portfolio holder: Councillor Sarah Broughton

Lead officer: Christine Brain

Recommended to Council (15 December 2020):

That the Financial Resilience Report (September 2020), as contained in Report number: FRS/WS/20/003, be approved.

The Cabinet considered this report, which was recommending to Council, the approval of the Financial Resilience Report for the first half of the 2020 financial year.

Councillor Sarah Broughton, Portfolio Holder for Resources and Performance, drew relevant issues to the attention of Cabinet, including that the total amount invested at 1 April 2020 was £29,900,000 and at 30 September 2020 £27,900,000.

The 2020 to 2021 Annual Treasury Management and Investment Strategy set out the Council’s projections for the current financial year.  The budget for investment income in 2020 to 2021 was £142,141 which was based on a 0.65 per cent target interest rate of return on investments.

As at the end of September 2020, interest earned during the second quarter of the financial year amounted to £54,297.81 against a profiled budget for the period of £71,070; a budgetary deficit of £16,772.69.  The budgetary deficit related to continued low interest rates as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic which started in mid-March 2020. 

Members also noted from the report, a summary of the capital borrowing budget 2020 to 2021; borrowing and income – proportionality; borrowing and asset yields; borrowing and temporary loans and other market considerations.

As at the end of September 2020, the Council had not had any additional external borrowing or temporary loans over the long-term £4 million loan.

Recommended to Council (15 December 2020):

That the Financial Resilience Report (September 2020), as contained in Report number: FRS/WS/20/003, be approved.

(Councillor Ian Houlder, Chair of the Performance and Audit Scrutiny Committee joined the meeting during the consideration of this item.)