Agenda item

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The Financial Services Manager explained that the Council had formally adopted the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy’s (CIPFA) Code of Practice on Treasury Management (revised 2021) and remained fully compliant with its requirements.  One of the primary requirements of the Code was receipt by Council of a quarterly Review Report.

The Committee was informed that the Quarterly Review Report had been prepared in compliance with CIPFA’s Code of Practice, and covered the following:

•           A review of the Treasury Management Strategy.

•           The Council’s capital expenditure (prudential indicators).

•           An economic update for the first three months of 2023/2024.

The following additional supporting information was attached to the report as set out below:

•           Appendix 1 – Economic Update.

•           Appendix 2 – Interest Rate forecasts.

•           Appendix 3 – Prudential and Treasury Indicators for 2023/2024.

•           Appendix 4 – Investment Portfolio.

•           Appendix 5 – Approved countries for investment.

The Chair thanked the Financial Services Manager for the report and invited questions and comments from the Committee, a summary of which is set out below.

In response to questions from the Chair, Councillor Ryves, the Financial Services Manager confirmed that future reports to the Committee would be presented on a quarterly basis.

The Chair, Councillor Ryves referred to Appendix 3 and commented on the authorised limit for external debt for the previous year being £86m compared to the current year £10m and added that this appeared to be odd.  In response, the Financial Services Manager explained that the method of calculating the authorised limit and opportunities for borrowing was dictated by CIPFA guidance and this indicator confirmed we were operating within that limit.

Councillor de Winton commented that the figures presented indicated the Council was in a good place but felt in his opinion the economy of West Norfolk had slowed down and elsewhere in the country staff had been made redundant and asked what “stress tests” had been applied.

The Chair invited Councillor Morley, Finance Portfolio Holder to answer the question from Councillor de Winton.

Councillor Morley commented that the Administration had not gone through the war games analysis but seek to improve and help the community to recover and added that perhaps this could be picked up in separately to ascertain what the Council’s parameters were to work within.

The Chair, Councillor Ryves referred to page 54, internal borrowing figure and asked for an explanation.  In response, the Financial Services Manager explained that there were many phrases associated with internal borrowing and a CIPFA template was used which linked to the new Code and some localisation needs to be applied to this.  It was explained that in the financial year there were some elements of the capital programme that were not funded through capital receipts and grants and the figures represent the changes to the capital programme approved by Cabinet on 1 August 2023.  The Financial Services Manager added that the Quarter 2 monitoring report would contain an update on recent work undertaken on the re-profiling of the capital programme.

Following further comments from the Chair, Councillor Ryves, the Assistant Director, Resources explained that in future reports there may be some flexibility in the presentation of the contents of the report as long as we still comply with the Treasury Management requirements.

RESOLVED:  The Audit Committee is asked to note the report and the treasury activity.