Archived decisions

REPORT OF THE

Cabinet / Leader

PART II

CAPITAL STRATEGY 2006

The County Council has prepared and published a Capital Strategy each year since the Government made it a requirement in 2001. Although this requirement was removed in 2004, the County Council considers that an up-to-date Capital Strategy remains an important part of sound asset management. The Strategy will continue to be a key consideration of the Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) framework and will provide useful background material for the forthcoming consultation with stakeholders on the County Council's revenue budget and capital programme. The Strategy also contains a section on procurement initiatives, which highlights many good examples of partnership working. Accordingly, the Cabinet approved the updated Strategy on 24 July 2006.

The key changes to the Strategy since last year are as follows:-

· the Local Area Agreement

· the updated Corporate Strategy

· 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

· the Strategic Property Review

· the second Local Transport Plan

· plans to restrict services' use of Government borrowing allocations in 2007/08, following the Government's failure to respond positively to the County Council's representations for providing additional revenue support grant towards increased borrowing costs

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

A copy of the full Strategy document can be obtained from Democratic Services in the Chief Executive's Department upon request.

The County Council also maintains a more detailed Asset Management Plan (AMP). This document focuses on the County Council's property assets and complements the Local Transport Plan for highways and transport assets and the Education AMP for schools. An updated version of the AMP will be submitted to the Buildings, Land and Procurement Panel later in the year.