Democracy in Crawley

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Issue - meetings

Treasury Management Strategy 2019/2020

Meeting: 06/02/2019 - Cabinet (Item 6)

6 Treasury Management Strategy 2019/2020 pdf icon PDF 292 KB

The Leader’s Portfolio

 

To consider report FIN/464 of the Head of Corporate Finance, which was referred to the meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Commission held on 4 February 2019.

 

Minutes:

The Leader of the Council presented report FIN/464 of the Head of Corporate Finance. The strategy covered two main areas, Capital related matters and treasury management issues. It was noted that the Council was required to produce a Treasury Management Strategy.

 

The Leader stated that the purpose of the report was to show how the Council intends to invest, over long and short terms, the money it holds both in its reserves and collects, to ensure that the Council was making best use of that money. The Council’s investment criteria was based on three principles, security, investment and yield in that order. However part of our investment strategy states that we would not invest in unethical investments as shown in section 7.3 of report FIN/464.

 

It was noted that there were no material changes to the Investment Strategy in Section 7 and Appendix 3 of the report compared with the 2018/2019 Strategy. Also that the report takes into account the revenue and capital implications arising in the 2019/20 Budget and Council Tax report (FIN/462).

 

Councillor Cheshire presented the Overview and Scrutiny Commission’s comments on the report to the Cabinet following consideration of the matter at its meeting on 4 February 2019. The Commission were pleased with the success with the rate of return that the in-house team were able to achieve on the Council’s investments. It also noted that there might be a need in the future for the Council to look beyond the income from property acquisition.

 

Councillors Skudder and Thomas also spoke on the report and questioned that going forward, could the Council’s ethical investment policy be expanded to consider company ecological position. The Leader commented that he would be happy in the future to look at adding such a category to the ethical investment policy.

 

 

RESOLVED

 

That Full Council be recommended to approve

 

a)            the Treasury Prudential Indicators and the Minimum Revenue Provision (MRP) Statement contained within Section 5 of report FIN/464;

 

b)            the Treasury Management Strategy contained within Section 6 of report FIN/464;

 

c)            the Investment Strategy contained within Section 7, and the detailed criteria included in Appendix 3 of report FIN/464;

 

 

Reasons for the Recommendations

 

The Council’s financial regulations, in accordance with the CIPFA Code of Practice for Treasury Management, requires a Treasury Management Strategy to be approved for the forthcoming financial year. This report complies with these requirements


Meeting: 04/02/2019 - Overview and Scrutiny Commission (Item 6)

6 Treasury Management Strategy 2019/2020 pdf icon PDF 292 KB

To consider report FIN/464 of the Head of Corporate Finance.

Minutes:

The Commission considered report FIN/464 of the Head of Corporate Finance on the Treasury Management Strategy for 2019/2020 which the Council was required to approve before the start of the financial year in accordance with the CIPFA Code of Practice for Treasury Management and the Council’s financial regulations.

 

During the discussion with the Leader of the Council, Head of Corporate Finance and Chief Accountant, Councillors made the following comments:

·        Confirmation that the policy of investing according to the principles of security, liquidity, yield and ethical remains.

·        Acknowledgement that there had been a great deal of uncertainty within the economy.

·        Recognition that diversifying into property can be worthwhile in terms of investment.  However there was an acknowledgement that there may be a need to be more creative in the future.

 

RESOLVED

That the Commission agreed to support the recommendations to the Cabinet.