(a)

the Treasury Management Outturn Report was delayed due to staff shortfalls in the finance department;

(b)

Table 1 established the level of borrowing needed by the council given the amount of schemes it had that were fit for borrowing and to make sure the council didn’t borrow unnecessarily;

(c)

Table 2 described the Council’s borrowing activity, specifically where borrowing had come from, and also showed the position at both the start and end of the year; the table set out where the Council took advantage of low interest rates that it could secure over a longer term (in this case 50 years with the Public Works Loan Board) – this gained rates ranging from 1.37% to 2%;

(d)

the Council showed a reduction in its borrowing activity from £628m to £577m – the Council had addressed some of the interest rate risk;

(e)

Table 3 set out where the council had its investments; overall the Council’s investments had increased from £97m to £101m through improved valuation of pooled funds;

(f)

Table 4 provided a summary of the treasury management outturn position and summarised the impact on the revenue ledger;

(g)

page 11 of the report set out the prudential indicators – all activities had been delivered within these. These indicators encouraged councils to look in detail at the cost of their capital investment and treasury management activities and ensure they were funded by the revenue account. The council was required to set limits around that activity and if limits were breached there was an opportunity to consider the wider affordability of plans to be pursued. The council was sitting within the prudential indicators and the burden was acceptable and affordable to the council.

(h)

the council was carrying large cash balances because of the receipt of grants or receipt of other monies coming in from Government – as at 31 March 2022 a lot of covid grants had already been received;

(i)

the interest rate credit swap would be shown in the short term borrowing section; the interest rate heading arrangements would be more noticeable in future reports however was referenced to in the written report;

(j)

all liabilities associated with long term debt and financing the of capital programme were closely monitored – through the medium term financial process the Council carefully assessed what was affordable to establish what the Council’s future liabilities would be. Plymouth City Council had an unusually a high proportion of capital spend financed by capital grants. The approved programme was approximately £400m and of that capital borrowing was £80m;

(k)

in light of the outturn provision, the transfer for reserves were entries on those which might affect the outturn position for 21/22;

(l)

it was considered appropriate that an interim statement on Treasury Management should be  ...  view the full minutes text for item 31