Agenda and minutes

None.

Agreed.

The Committee resolved to accept the recommendations set out in the report.

It was agreed that the Digital Infrastructure Loan and Investment Committee Performance Review be combined for discussion.

The Deputy Chief Executive explained that we are required to undertake a regular and annual review of the investment committee.   The report will be presented to Governance and Audit Committee. The report demonstrates the broad sense of the governance arrangements that that have come together since Council took a decision in May 2018 to delegate £50 million worth of borrowing for a 3 year period to the Investment committee.

There has been a review of property investment acquisitions by internal audit and the report talks to the specific recommendations that came as a consequence of that internal audit report.The internal audit report provided reasonable assurance in terms of our arrangements and actions have either been completed or they were very specifically related to the Broadway investment, and have been fully acted upon.

Subsequent to the Corporate and Community Plan being taken to March Council officers will be looking to create an asset management strategy and the need to have a commercial strategy or whether a commercial strategy is better positioned within the Council's financial strategy, which is also looking to be refreshed and updated in the coming months.

Since a decision taken in March 2020, and as a result of an extensive due diligence process, we've been in discussion with the company Broadway with regards to the desire to move forward and deliver the Council's digital infrastructure plan.

By December 2024, Broadway are expecting to receive £22 million worth of investment to enable full fibre investment into the county.  This is expecting to benefit a lot of those residents that were previously not going to be seeing any level of connection 2020.

Broadway are paying their loan without default and they were originally provided with a revolving credit facility to assist them with acquisitions. This has been paid back so there were no concerns with regards to their ability to service the loan.

Broadway can no longer deliver against the loan with their altered business plan and the Investment Committee was asked it was comfortable for officers to pursue further negotiation with Broadway.

County Councillor Richard John agreed that we had entered into the agreement for two reasons. While it's a commercial loan, there was also an opportunity there for an important policy objective related to those residents who didn't have access to broadband. He was keen to see more detail about on work being done and which residents stand to benefit over the next couple of years.

The Deputy Chief Executive thought there to be 1200 white premises across Monmouthshire that will remain with little or no connection. 

A key question is what efforts now need to be made really to address the remaining number of white premises and that discussion should now be had Broadway, and fed back to Cath Fallon, who runs team around the digital infrastructure plan.

Adam Greenwood was invited to comment regarding digital infrastructure. He explained  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

The Deputy Chief Executive spoke to the report to be presented to Governance and Audit Committee on 24^th November 2022, which seeks to provide a performance review of the Investment Committee, with consideration of the recommendations of the Internal Audit Report Investment Property Acquisitions 21/22.

Proposing that