This report fulfils the requirement in the Treasury Management Strategy to produce an Annual Outturn Report to review the Treasury Management activity which took place from 1st April 2023 to 31st March 2024.

The Committee considered a report on the Council’s Treasury Management Strategy and Annual Investment Strategy for 2023/24.  The Treasury Management Strategy required an Annual Outturn Report reviewing the Treasury Management activity which had taken place during the year. 

The report stated that the Council had continued to finance capital expenditure through maximising the use of capital receipts, capital grants and internal borrowing. During 2023/24 the Council had taken out short-term loans of £101m at an average interest rate of 5.47%, in line with the Borrowing Strategy.  No long-term loans had been taken out during the year. 

Overall, the Council had under borrowed by £194.872 million as at 31 March 2024.  As a consequence, the Council had effectively avoided incurring external interest costs in the order of £8.711 million during 2023/24, based on the average rate for the existing debt portfolio of 4.47%.  Against the 2023/24 General Fund budget, there was an overall positive net variance of £3.121m on the Capital Financing budget.  This budget included interest payable, interest receivable and Minimum Revenue Provision (MRP) and a charge to the revenue budget to pay off the principal sum of the borrowing to finance the Capital Programme.

The report confirmed that the Council had not breached any of its treasury management performance indicators during 2023/2024.  The Borrowing and Investment portfolios and a list of approved Countries for Investments as at 31 March 2024 were appended to the report for further information.

Resolved:       That the Treasury Management Outturn Report for 2023/24 be noted.