Report of the Deputy Chief Executive and City Treasurer attached

This report provides a summary of the Council’s proposed capital investment priorities, which will be included in the Capital Strategy report to Executive in February.

The Committee considered a report of the Deputy Chief Executive and City Treasurer, which provided a summary of the Council’s proposed capital investment priorities, which would be included in the Capital Strategy report to Executive in February 2020.

The main points and themes within the report included:-

·                Through the existing capital programme and recent policy decisions there were already a number of overarching future investment priorities, which included:-

·                The steps required to ensure the Council’s capital programme met its target to at least halve its carbon output over the next five years, which would include understanding how investment could be classified in terms of carbon impact as well as financial;

·                The ongoing priority to deliver new affordable housing stock resulting in the decision to increase the delivery target from 5,000 Affordable Homes to a minimum of 6,400 Affordable Homes by March 2025;

·                A continued commitment to develop a more inclusive economy, both for the City and the Council, in order to meet the ambition set out within the Our Manchester Industrial Strategy;

·                An increasing role for the Council to look at market intervention, where the existing market outputs did not support the Council’s wider aims, likely to be focussed on areas such as health and social care and particular residential and intermediate care;

·                To ensure that the Council’s corporate estate was fit for purpose, particularly its leisure estate where certain assets were now nearly 20 years old;

·                It was difficult to project the exact budget requirement but for the purposes of the Strategy it was proposed to include a total budget of £30m across all years of the programme for inflation, to be funded from borrowing; and

·                An outline of the potential investment proposals across Council Directorates to support the Council in achieving its strategic aims.

Some of the key points that arose from the Committees discussions were:-

·                What proposals, if any, was there for investment programmes for the Inclusive Economy;

·                Where consideration of market interventions was being considered, was this purely to improve the Council’s financial position or to also improve the Council’s social value aims at the same time;

·                More information was requested on the potential capital requirements for the development of supported and semi-supported housing options and also the proposal to consider the establishment of a Council owned temporary accommodation unit for homeless families;

·                There was concern that there was no specific budget allocations for some of the priorities highlighted in the report, with particular reference to proposals to support homeless families and young people;

·                There was concern that there was no reference within the Capital paper or pipeline to crime proofing infrastructure;

·                Was there any financial provision to investigate/research potential inclusions to the Council’s Capital Programme prior to business cases being developed and submitted for consideration;

·                It was commented that as the Capital Programme only listed major, large scale schemes, smaller, local schemes that required investment could often got overlooked;

·                What future investment was planned past 2022/23 for drainage;

·                Why was there no budget line after 2020/21 for school crossings, and if we were going to continue with a school crossing programme, how would that be implemented successfully if it was not currently in the pipeline given the time necessary to identify and commission that work?

·                With reference to the Highways Capital Projects, it was suggested that it the priority of each programme should be identified in order to determine what percentage of the overall Highways capital programme should be allocated to individual projects;

·                Clarification was sought as to what the £5.9m allocated to the Waste Contract would be used for; and

·                Was there any update on the new telephony contract as there appeared to be a low amount of funding allocated to this programme of work.

The Executive Member for Finance and Human Resources advised that through the Capital Strategy Gateway process, all capital programme proposals were required to demonstrate what social value the programme intended on delivering for the city and its residents, through the use of the local workforce and supply chains.

The Executive Member for Finance and Human Resources commented that the use of market interventions would need to be determined on a case by case scenario and would not solely be taken on the grounds of improving the Council’s financial position but to also improve the lives of Manchester residents.

The Deputy City Treasurer commented a number of the priorities put forward where the business cases are still being developed prior to approval and formal inclusion in the capital budget.  The Executive Member for Finance and Human Resources explained that the Capital Programme was not a static programme and throughout the year would change with things added to it, removed or delayed.  As such, it was not appropriate to earmark a level of funding to a particular programme without it being fully scoped. 

The Chair suggested that the Committee received a further report on the potential use of the Council’s capital budget on an invest to save basis to address the revenue implications of homelessness, and support Manchester residents.

The Deputy City Treasurer advised that when Directorates brought forward business cases for programmes to be included in the Capital Programme, if this required some form of investigatory/research work, this would be cost factored into the business case proposals. 

The Executive Member for Finance and Human Resources acknowledged that if more resources were available, more capital investments could be made on small local schemes but as the Council only had a finite financial resource, it had to make its capital investment decisions based on and around the priority areas set by the Council.

The Executive Member for Finance and Human Resources agreed to raise the issue of future investment in drainage and on road safety with the Executive Member for Environment, Planning and Transport.

The Deputy City Treasurer advised that the £5.9million would be used to invest in new vehicles to support the Council’s waste contract on an invest to save basis.

The Deputy Chief Executive and City Treasurer explained that for ICT the report only set out programmes were there had been approved spend and there was a larger piece of work around data centre, telephony and CRM system which was not reflected in the report before committee as the overall level of spend had not been fully allocated.

Decision

The Committee:-

(1)       Notes the report.

(2)       Requests that the Executive take into consideration the comments made by Members that highways safety measures (including school crossings and other traffic calming measures), plus crime proofing infrastructure are considered as part of the capital strategy.