Issue - meetings

Report of Assistant Director Finance (Section 151 Officer)

Purpose of report

To submit the draft Capital and Investment Strategy and Treasury Management Strategy for 2026-27 for recommendation by the committee to the Executive.

Recommendations

The Accounts, Audit & Risk Committee resolves:

1.1     To recommend the draft Capital and Investment Strategy for 2026-27 (Appendix 1) and draft Treasury Management Strategy for 2026-27 (Appendix 2) to Executive.

Resolved

(1)        That the draft Capital and Investment Strategy for 2026-27 and draft Treasury Management Strategy for 2026-27 be recommended to Executive

The Assistant Director of Finance (Section 151 Officer) submitted a report for the Committee to consider the draft Capital and Investment Strategy and Treasury Management Strategy for 2026-27 and recommend to Executive.

In introducing the report, the Portfolio Holder for Finance, Property and Regeneration advised that the Strategies were reviewed annually as part of the budget setting process and submitted to the Committee for review, comment and recommendation to the Executive. As part of the 2026-27 review, it was proposed that the operational boundary for debt be reduced from £200M to £199M to reflect a more realistic estimate of the maximum external debt. The updated Capital and Investment Strategy now included the implementation of a Carbon Impact Assessment as part of the appraisal of capital proposals.

In response to a request for an explanation of the affordability ratio, the Committee was advised that this was a comparison between the Ratio of Financing Costs (looking at how much the Council was spending on interest payable and Minimum Revenue Provision charges compared to taxation income streams) and the Ratio of Service Investment Income (which took into account the income received from investments).

In response to a question regarding the use of the Carbon Assessment Matrix in the decision making process for capital projects, the Head of Finance explained that although this was an important factor that would be taken in to account when reviewing proposals, there could potentially be scenarios where a project was given the go ahead despite having a Negative Impact Score (red) for example if a project was considered critical to the Council or its residents.

In response to a request for treasury management training to be made available to all Councillors, the Monitoring Officer agreed to review this as part of the member training programme.

Resolved

(1)        That the draft Capital and Investment Strategy for 2026-27 and draft Treasury Management Strategy for 2026-27 be recommended to Executive