Agenda item

The Committee received a report on the development of West Lindsey District Council’s UK Shared Prosperity Fund Investment Plan which set out a vision and priorities for UKSPF investment.

It was reported that much of 2022 had been spent on developing  plans for the UK Shared Prosperity Fund which included a tour of the district, developing the evidence base and theory of change, collaborating with partners, stakeholders and colleagues and Member workshops. This had culminated in a special concurrent meeting of this Committee and the Prosperous Communities Committee signing off the investment plan in July 2022 ahead of submission to Government. Since this time, the Government had published the Rural England Prosperity Fund (REPF), and the Council went through a mini process to develop the proposals for the fund, which again was signed off at a concurrent Committee meeting and submitted to Government. In December 2022, a Memorandum of Understanding had been signed with the Government for UKSPF and Members were advised that the first tranche of funding had arrived. Final sign off of the REPF was expected to follow shortly.

Throughout this process the Council had committed to the development of a Green Book compliant business case for each of the three Government investment priorities in order to confirm the case for investment, setting out what would be invested in and how, and the management and monitoring arrangements. The three business cases were now subject to sign off so that the Council could move into the delivery stage. The Committee report summarised the position across the programme and each Business Case along with its suite of appendices formed part of the Committee report.

The total fund for UKSPF / REPF and confirmed match funding was £4,716,458 which had to be spent by 31 March 2025. The fund was split across the three priorities as follows:

• Communities and Place: £2,292,100
• Local Business: £1,888,331
• People and Skills: £408,000

Members heard there were twelve interventions across the three investment themes. The business cases set out the detailed proposals for each of the interventions and a short slide presentation illustrating the proposed level of interventions was given.

Each of the three cases had been assessed to understand their benefit/cost ratio. All three cases demonstrated high value for money and when assessed would retain this position even if costs increased and benefits decreased. Supporting the business cases was a scalable approach to communications which was set out in the supporting local businesses document. Similar work was being undertaken in relation to the other two cases. The success of the programme would require officers to engage widely with local communities and businesses. Therefore the roll out of this programme was key and work was proceeding on developing the materials that supported the programme roll out.

It was proposed to have the grant funding schemes live by the beginning of April 2023. For the business support element this would depend upon procuring a delivery agent as per the commercial case.

The Council had been awaiting the detailed subsidy control advice from its advisors and it was reported that this had now been received. The advice subsequently received was that that each intervention appeared capable of being designed to comply with Subsidy Control law, but in order to manage this, technical compliance requirements would need to be carefully handled during the award process and delivery. 

The programme governance was aligned to the recently established LUF governance arrangements and would sit within the Council’s Programme Board structure.

The Committee was invited to approve sign off of the business cases with associated delegations to carry the proposal forward.

Officers responded to a number of queries and comments from Members, including the need to keep communities advised of progress being made with various schemes and the importance of partnership working in the delivery of schemes. The possible need for additional reporting back to Members on the progress of schemes, as well as financial information, was discussed, with Members assured there would be additional reporting if required.

Overall however Members were supportive of the actions that had been taken and thanked the Officers for their hard work on what was a complex arrangement.

Having been moved and seconded, the Chairman took the vote and it was

            RESOLVED that

a)    the Communities and Place, Supporting Local Businesses and People and Skills UKSPF Business Cases be approved; and

b)    authority be delegated to the Director – Planning, Regeneration and Communities to manage the UKSPF programme via the UKSPF Programme Board; and

c)    the quarterly and annual reporting arrangements as identified in section 6 of the report, be approved, these being: quarterly updates on expenditure be given to the Corporate Policy and Resources Committee; and an annual update on the progress of the programme be given to the Prosperous Communities Committee; and

d)    authority be delegated to the Director – Planning, Regeneration and Communities, in consultation with the Chairman of this Committee, to make updates, as required, to the UKSPF outputs and outcomes with Government through the identified reporting arrangements.