Agenda and minutes

Venue: Council House, Coventry

Contact: Suzanne Bennett  Tel: 024 7697 2299

Items
No. Item

1.

Declarations of Interest

Minutes:

The Director of Finance, Barry Hastie, declared an interest in the matter referred to in Minute 4 below relating to “UK Battery Industrialisation Centre Funding” as he is a City Council appointed Director of the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre. Barry left the meeting for consideration of this item.  

2.

Minutes of Previous Meeting pdf icon PDF 223 KB

a)  To note the Minutes of the previous meeting held on 5 March, 2020

 

b)  Any matters arising

Minutes:

The Minutes of the meeting held on 5 March, 2020 were noted.

 

In relation to  Minute 29/19 – “Agency Worker – Performance Management Report” it was noted that a report on Agency Workers had been considered by Cabinet on 31 August, 2021.

3.

Support to Cheylesmore Food Hub pdf icon PDF 146 KB

Report of the Director of Finance

Minutes:

The Cabinet Member for Strategic Finance and Resources considered a report of the Director of Finance which indicated that the Cheylesmore Food Hub is a registered charity which was established to provide the local community with access to emergency food support. In order to improve the effectiveness of the service that the Hub provides, representatives of the Hub have requested help from the Council to fund the cost of a vehicle.  The Hub undertakes a service which is closely aligned to Council objectives and has worked alongside the Council in providing local poverty relief in particular through the period marked by the Covid pandemic.

 

The recommended option identified in the report is that the Council identifies a vehicle due for disposal from its own fleet and gifts this to the Cheylesmore Food Hub. The Council operates a fleet of vehicles which it uses to deliver a wide range of its services. These vehicles are replaced periodically based on a combination of their age and working condition. Those that are owned outright by the Council (rather than being leased) are disposed of by auction. The vehicles will often continue to have a useful working life at this point and therefore can offer a practical and cost effectiveness option for organisations or individuals that take on their ownership. The disposal income foregone by the Council would be funded from the Cabinet Member’s Policy Contingency budget and paid to the Fleet Management Service.

 

RESOLVED that the Cabinet Member for Strategic Finance approves the provision of a vehicle of estimated value £2,000 via a grant agreement to the Cheylesmore Food Hub.

 

4.

UK Battery Industrialisation Centre Funding pdf icon PDF 176 KB

Report of the Director of Business Investment and Culture

Minutes:

The Cabinet Member for Strategic Finance and Resources considered a report of the Director of Business, Investment and Culture which indicated that Coventry is home to the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre (UKBIC) which formally opened for business in July 2021. UKBIC is a state of the art £130m battery research facility which works to support the UK automotive industry to develop the next generation of electric vehicle batteries.

 

Since the Council, its partners and the major funders of the project Innovate UK began to plan the project in 2017, the pace of change in the automotive industry has increased even more quickly than was forecast, with legislation coming into force which will ban the sale of new internal combustion engine vehicles by 2030.

 

The full operational phase of the plant has been delayed by the pandemic due to the global reduction in manufacturing resulting in the slippage of planned commercial contractual income for the company.  Now that the facility is up and running, UKBIC is focussing on winning orders from the automotive industry for the critical Research and Development work that it does. The demand for this work is now returning strongly such that it will be necessary for UK Battery Industrialisation Centre Ltd to secure short term funding for both the existing operational and ramp-up costs of additional staffing required and other expenses in order to support automotive manufacturers with these orders, many of which are linked to the ongoing aspirations to secure high-volume battery manufacturing in UK ‘gigafactories’.

 

The UK Government’s Faraday Challenge is proposing to provide the additional funding to UK Battery Industrialisation Centre Ltd for this purpose, some immediately, and further grant monies in 2022/23 and 2023/24. The timing of these expected monies is such that there will be an immediate need for cash flow support in October/November 2021. It is proposed that the Council (in its role as UK Battery Industrialisation Centre Ltd’s shareholder) provide UK Battery Industrialisation Centre with a cash flow facility of up to £500,000, which would be a secured interest bearing loan that contributes towards a total of approximately £2m required in the current financial year to continue operating, with the Faraday Challenge providing the remainder including subsequent years.

 

The report sought delegated authority to negotiate the detailed terms of the loan which would be made on a commercial basis. The City Council  will aim to recover all the funding it provides to UK Battery Industrialisation Centre Ltd plus interest charged at a rate that is compatible with Subsidy Control (state aid law) and will take appropriate security on the loan to cover any event of default. UK Battery Industrialisation Centre Ltd will only be able to draw down the loan once the remaining funding has been committed by Government. This is the recommended option because it provides the necessary funding for UK Battery Industrialisation Centre Ltd to match against additional cash from Government whilst enabling the Council to recover its initial funding contribution. This option will provide the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

5.

Any Other Items of Urgent Public Business

Minutes:

There were no other items of urgent public business.