Issue - meetings

The Finance and Staffing Portfolio Holder commended the work of the Council’s treasury management function, whose investments continued to outperform those managed externally.  Members noted that the report referred to performance in 2008/09 and not the current year.

Cabinet NOTED the performance of the treasury management function and offered its congratulations to officers for another successful year.

The Head of Accountancy presented a report to inform the Portfolio Holder on the performance of the treasury management function for the year 2008/09.

The Portfolio Holder was advised that the Council was a member of a benchmarking club on treasury management and with a return of 5.61% on combined investments the Council had achieved the third highest return in the comparator group of thirteen, and nineteenth highest in the overall group of 128 other organisations.

The Portfolio Holder was further advised that fund management costs were lower than in the benchmark group due to the work being carried out in-house.

The Portfolio Holder praised the performance and, in reply to a question attributed the result to two main factors, the Council policy of limiting exposure to foreign banks and the consistent good performance of officers.

In reply to a question the Portfolio Holder was advised that the Investment Strategy was presented yearly to Cabinet in March, but that it would be possible for the counterparty list to be reviewed on an ongoing basis, for example to include institutions under the umbrella ownership of Santander such as Abbey National.

The Portfolio Holder requested that the counterparty list be reviewed when the Executive Director, Corporate Services took up post on a full time basis.

Action:  Alex Colyer / Adrian Burns

In reply to a further question it was confirmed that the higher amount of interest earned was a comparative figure against the average and not against the amount that had been built into the budget.

The report was NOTED.