Contact: Jon Pittam (01962) 847400 [email protected], and

Andrew Smith (01962) 847826 [email protected]

1 Capital Strategy

1.1 The County Council has prepared and published a Capital Strategy each year since the Government made it a requirement in 2001. That requirement was removed in 2004 but an up-to-date Capital Strategy remains an important part of the Council's sound asset management. It will continue to be a key consideration under the Comprehensive Performance Assessment.

1.2 The current Capital Strategy has been updated and is attached as Appendix 1 for approval. The major changes cover:

· the Local Area Agreement, in section 2

· the updated Corporate Strategy, in section 2

· the Council's strategy for dealing with the backlog of repairs and maintenance, as highlighted by the Audit Commission in the Annual Audit and Inspection Letter for 2004/05 (paragraph 4.3)

· the Strategic Property Review (paragraphs 4.5 and 4.6)

· the second local transport plan (paragraph 5.3)

· plans to restrict services' use of Government borrowing allocations in 2007/08, following changes in the Government's methodology for providing revenue support grant towards such borrowing costs, as proposed elsewhere on this Agenda (paragraph 11.3)

· an update of the section on procurement to reflect fully the impact of the Council's role in the South East Centre of Excellence (section 12).

1.3 In addition, all the data and examples in the Capital Strategy have been updated.

1.4 The County Council also maintains a more detailed corporate asset management plan (AMP). This focuses on the Council's property assets and an updated version for 2006 will be reported to the Buildings, Land and Procurement Panel later in the year. It complements the Local Transport Plan for highways and transport assets and the Education AMP for schools.

2 Equalities impact

2.1 An impact assessment has been made on the proposals in this paper and shown that they are not discriminatory.

3 Conclusions

3.1 That the Cabinet approve the updated Capital Strategy, attached as Appendix 1 to this report.

Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - background papers

The following documents disclose facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and has been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

NB the list excludes:

1. Published works.

2. Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act.

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