To enable the committee to provide assurance on the adequacy with  regards to  the risk framework on the measures the council is taking as the accountable body for the new model in technology & engineering (NMiTE) and the milestone payments from the Department for Education (DfE).

The chief finance officer presented the report. 

It was noted that the Department of Education (DfE) would be deciding milestones before March 2020.    Before any funding was released to NMiTE, the DfE needed to confirm that the funding could be released. 

The chief finance officer reported that the DfE appeared to have a timetable in place for deciding further funding for NMiTE and that this may be in place for January 2020.   It was noted that the forthcoming General Election may impact on the DfE timetable.

In response to queries from the committee, the following points were noted: 

·         The council’s monitoring costs were taken from the grant funding.  

·         If the DfE required the grant funding to repaid, the council’s costs would have to be paid back. 

·         The arrangements for the payment of the grant had been approved by the Treasury.   As part of the planning for the project, the possible scenario that the project may fail had been accepted by the Government.   As the failure scenario had been built into the project, the Government may not seek to recover the funding. 

·         NMiTE also have other income streams and were not entirely reliant on the DfE funding.   This could mean that the council’s monitoring costs may not be paid back. 

·         There had been considerable officer time at the commencement of the project but there was now little or no council resources being used in the day to day running of NMiTE.  

·         The chief finance officer was an observer at the finance committee.

·         The Leader of Council was currently an observer at the NMiTE main board.  This was not an outside body appointment but was part of the partnership arrangements.    The Leader was not representing the accountable body at the board. 

·         As part of the Leader’s report to full Council, there would be commentary on NMiTE.

·         General Scrutiny Committee had the function for looking at NMiTE outside of the accountable body function.    It was understood that NMiTE was in the process of being added to the work programme for General Scrutiny Committee. 

·         The solicitor of the council agreed to provide links to the partnership register and the outside bodies. 

·         The Marches Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) had agreed to grant NMiTE additional grant funding. 

RESOLVED

That the committee receive a further report on NMiTE at its meeting to be held in January