SAVVY investors at South Cambridgeshire District Council are netting more cash than other comparable councils, they claim.

SAVVY investors at South Cambridgeshire District Council are netting more cash than other comparable councils, they claim.

Making low-risk investments has helped the council maintain its relatively low Council Tax charge for years, SCDC said – perhaps conveniently forgetting its failed attempt to double the precept overnight four years ago.

Each year the council’s investment performance is compared with other similar councils’ performances. Since 2005, SCDC has had a better return than the rest of the councils in its comparable group.

And in four of the five previous years SCDC investments have out performed the national average for council investments, a spokesman said. SCDC currently invests just over �19million.

Between 2005 and 2009 it made between 4.84 per cent and 5.61 per cent on its investments. In 2009/10 that figure was just 2.68 per cent. But, as Alex Colyer, executive director and chief finance officer explained, that was because of low national interest rates.

He said: “For the whole of last year the base rate was at 0.5 per cent. Therefore our return of 2.68 per cent was pretty good. We still outperformed our comparable group’s average, containing 13 other councils, and performed better than the national group’s average, containing 137 councils.

“We have a strict strategy to mitigate as much risk as possible and it has been working well for us.”