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 1^st April 2021 to 31^st March 2022.

Darren Carter, Director of Finance, submitted a report on the Council’s Treasury Management Strategy and Annual Investment Strategy for 2021/22.  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 2021/22 the Council had not taken out any long or short-term loans.  The Council had not experienced any significant cashflow difficulties during the year due to the Covid-19 pandemic as although cash inflows had been reduced due to income losses, particularly from chargeable services such as car parking and leisure, they were offset by the receipt of additional one-off grant funding from Central Government and slippage in the Capital Programme.

Overall, the Council had under borrowed by £206.614 million as at 31 March 2022. As a consequence, the Council had effectively avoided incurring external interest costs in the order of £7m during 2021/22, based on the average rate for the existing debt portfolio of 3.39%.  Against the 2021/22 General Fund budget the Capital Financing budget came in online as reported in the 2021/22 Quarter 4 Performance report to Policy Committee on 11 July 2022.  This budget included interest payable, interest receivable and Minimum Revenue Provision (MRP) and the setting aside of revenue funds for the future repayment of outstanding borrowing.

The report confirmed that the Council had not breached any of its treasury management performance indicators during 2021/2022.  The Borrowing and Investment portfolios were appended to the report for further information.

Resolved:     That the Treasury Management Outturn Report for 2021/22 be noted.