Issue - meetings

Report by Hedd Vaughan-Evans, Operations Manager.

1.  To agree the Commercial Principles as set out in section 5 of the report.

2.  To note that the rationale for adopting a specific commercial position will be clearly set out alongside project business cases for the Board to consider.

The report was submitted by Hedd Vaughan-Evans (Operations Manager).

RESOLVED

(1)     To agree the Commercial Principles as set out in section 5 of the report.

(2)     To note that the rationale for adopting a specific commercial position will be clearly set out alongside project business cases for the Board to consider.

REASONS FOR THE DECISION

To provide a clear negotiating platform for the Portfolio Management Office.

DISCUSSION

The report was submitted, which presented a series of Commercial Principles which, if adopted, would be used by the Portfolio Management Office to negotiate commercial opportunities involving the Growth Deal Projects.

Details were provided about the background and relevant considerations and the consultations held.

During the discussion, the following matters were raised:-

·         In response to a question, it was explained that the £100,000 for external legal support referred to in item 5 above reflected the fact that there would be complex and detailed contractual work at times in relation to the general funding agreements, and that the external legal support referred to in paragraph 6.1 of the report was one element of this. It was further explained that, in approving this report, the NWEAB would not commit to direct expenditure. Nevertheless, there were financial implications to this, but likely to be positive for the Board in terms of the abilities to take advantage of commercial projects in order to have some sort of return. As the Host Authority's Statutory Finance Officer had noted in his observations on the report, this was not yet clear, and further work needed to be done in order to identify the way forward in that regard.

·         It was noted that it was difficult to comprehend all of this properly until genuine examples would be seen, but that the principles seemed fair.

·         It was suggested that Commercial Principle 1 could be difficult to define in terms of distinguishing between commercial returns as a result of this investment and commercial returns as a result of something that the body would do in any case.  However, it was accepted that the details were not currently available.