Not a lot of people know that

Attached at 1,2,3, are copies of Shepway District Council’s Investments held in instant access deposit accounts from1/04/14 – 31/03/15 including interest rates  and interest earned.

1 2 3

By way of explanation this is how the charts work. If you click on one[ at the top] and then go to the first date 01/4/14 you’ll see that half a percent was the interest rate and the sum invested was 7.9 million pounds with Nat West Bank. Move right and on the twenty first column you see the sum of one hundred and eight pounds and twenty pence interest for a near eight million investment.

The investments made SDC for the year 2014/5 the sum of ninety six thousand six hundred and six pounds and forty seven pence (96,606.47).

There is hardly a day goes by where SDC are not investing large sums of money overnight, for a few days or longer, with the following companies:

• Goldman Sachs

• Black Rock

• Ignis

• DB Advisors

• Federated Investors

• Svenska Handelsbank

• Barclays

• Legal & General

• RBS

The investments are perfectly legal and in know way am I suggesting SDC has done anything wrong, quite the opposite in fact.

However I do have one bone to pick, that being when they invest the sums of money, 5 million, for example, how do SDC know that it is being invested ethically.

How can they ensure that the money is not being used by Goldman Sachs for example and investing it into arms or other portfolios which have a dubious track record and which has been reported on in the national paper?

We do not, it is that simple as SDC it appears does not have an ethical investment policy and are prepared to make money any way that is possible, but that’s not surprising when you are sitting on a 62.3 million debt as SDC are.

If this troubles you, then you can always write to your local councillor and request that they consider an ethical investment policy.

Their Contact details can be found here contact  details SDC Cllrs

Shepway Vox