Agenda and minutes

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Contact: Sean O'Neill  01225 395090

Items
No. Item

100.

EMERGENCY EVACUATION PROCEDURE

The Chair will draw attention to the emergency evacuation procedure as set out under Note 7.

Minutes:

The Democratic Services Officer read out the procedure.

101.

ELECTION OF VICE-CHAIR

To elect a Vice-Chair (if required) for this meeting.

Minutes:

RESOLVED that a Vice-Chair was not required on this occasion.

102.

APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE AND SUBSTITUTIONS

Minutes:

Apologies were received from Councillors Chris Dando and Andrew Furse.

103.

DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST

At this point in the meeting declarations of interest are received from Members in any of the agenda items under consideration at the meeting. Members are asked to indicate:

(a) The agenda item number in which they have an interest to declare.

(b) The nature of their interest.

(c) Whether their interest is a disclosable pecuniary interest or an other interest,  (as defined in Part 2, A and B of the Code of Conduct and Rules for Registration of Interests)

Any Member who needs to clarify any matters relating to the declaration of interests is recommended to seek advice from the Council’s Monitoring Officeror a member of his staff before the meeting to expedite dealing with the item during the meeting.

Minutes:

There were none.

104.

TO ANNOUNCE ANY URGENT BUSINESS AGREED BY THE CHAIR

The Chair will announce any items of urgent business.

Minutes:

There was none.

105.

ITEMS FROM THE PUBLIC - TO RECEIVE DEPUTATIONS, STATEMENTS, PETITIONS OR QUESTIONS

Minutes:

There were none.

106.

ITEMS FROM COUNCILLORS AND CO-OPTED AND ADDED MEMBERS

To deal with any petitions, statements or questions from Councillors and, where appropriate, co-opted and added Members.

Minutes:

There were none.

107.

MINUTES: 24TH MARCH 2016 pdf icon PDF 79 KB

Minutes:

The minutes of the meeting of the 24th March 2016 were approved as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

108.

GOVERNANCE REPORTS FOR COUNCIL AND AVON PENSION FUND AND AUDITED STATEMENT OF ACCOUNTS 2015/16 pdf icon PDF 74 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Divisional Director – Business Support introduced this item.

 

The Head of Corporate Finance gave a presentation on the Council’s financial accounting statements. (A copy of his PowerPoint slides is attached to these minutes as an appendix). He explained that from 2015/16 there are two significant changes to the accounts. A Narrative Report has replaced the previous Explanatory Foreword. This gives an overview of the accounts and highlights the main financial issues, and contains a lot of non-financial information about the area, population and economy and how the Council is performing against its Corporate Strategy. The second change was a technical change relating to the fair value measurement of assets and liabilities. The main effect of this was on the value of property assets and financial instruments. From 2017/18 transport assets will have to be brought into the accounts and will be valued at replacement cost rather than historical cost, so the value of these assets will rise from their current £81m to £2.2bn. Also from 2017/18 the accounts will have to be published earlier; the certified accounts will have to be completed by the end of May and Grant Thornton will have to audit the accounts by the end of July.

 

A Member expressed concern about the new deadline for publishing the accounts. He felt that need to audit the accounts within two months might lead to superficiality, remembering that school accounts had to be audited as well. He wondered whether the auditors might be able to commence some elements of their work in January. Mr Morris confirmed that this is what they would be doing and this had already been integrated in their process.

 

In response to a question from a Member the Financial Resources Manager explained that Highways already value their assets and this work could be drawn on for the accounts. The Member suggested that since transport infrastructure could not be sold, its value was irrelevant. The Divisional Director – Business Support responded that valuing transport infrastructure was really just a means of showing what it would cost to replace it, even though it was not all going to be replaced at the same time. The valuation would give an idea of the scale of the replacement costs. A Member said that he did not see how the effort of revaluing transport infrastructure every year was justified by any benefit. The Divisional Director – Business replied that this exercise was entirely separate from the way the Council decided its highways spending. It was an accounting valuation based on the Council’s asset plans and on national/regional valuation formulae, so that a national value could be calculated on a consistent base across the country. In future years it would be largely a routine exercise.

 

The Head of Audit West presented the Annual Governance Statement. He drew attention to the significant governance issue for 2015/16, the financial challenge, and the mitigating actions identified for 2016/17.

 

A Member asked about the valuation of the Council’s property. Mr Morris said this  ...  view the full minutes text for item 108.

109.

TREASURY MANAGEMENT OUTTURN 2015/16 pdf icon PDF 259 KB

Minutes:

The Divisional Director-Business Support presented the report. He said that the Council was considerably underborrowed, as cash flow was being used instead of borrowing to fund the capital programme. As shown in the report the capital requirement was £182.5, whereas borrowing was only £118m. It was better to use cash flow in this way than to invest it at current historically low interest rates. The Council was likely to remain underborrowed for the foreseeable future. The Council was still not directly investing in institutions in the Eurozone.

 

It was proposed by Councillor Barrie Macrae and seconded by Councillor Chris Pearce and RESOLVED:

 

1.  to note the Treasury Management Report to 31st March 2016, which was prepared in accordance with the CIPFA Treasury Code of Practice.

 

2.  to note the 2015/16 Treasury Management Indicators.

 

110.

PROCUREMENT OPTIONS - EXTERNAL AUDIT pdf icon PDF 69 KB

Minutes:

The Head of Audit presented the report. The Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014 allows local authorities to appoint their own external auditors. The report set out a number of options for making an appointment, and identified a preferred option, which was to join a sector-led procurement exercise from Public Sector Audit Appointments Ltd. He would present an update at the next meeting.

 

It was proposed by Councillor Barrie Macrae and seconded by Councillor Chris Pearce and RESOLVED to support recommended option for the future procurement of external auditors by Public Sector Audit Appointments Ltd.