UK Shared Prosperity Fund

As anybody who lives in Cornwall will be aware, 2 weeks ago the UK Government issued its long-awaited prospectus for the UK Shared Prosperity Fund. As a reminder the UK Shared Prosperity Fund was first announced in 2017 as the replacement for EU regional development funding post-Brexit. I will refrain from comment on the debate which has made front page news in local papers here (Cornwall) and national tv, but instead try and pull out the key points from the Prospectus with a focus of those aspects which may be of more interest to businesses.

Headlines

Funding	£2.6 billion
Period	To March 2025
Aims of the Fund	· Boost productivity, pay, jobs and living standards by growing the private sector, especially in those places where they are lagging · Spread opportunities and improve public services, especially in those places where they are weakest · Restore a sense of community, local pride and belonging, especially in those places where they have been lost · Empower local leaders and communities, especially in those places lacking local agency
Investment Priorities	· Build pride in place and increase life chances: o Community and Place o Supporting Local Business (see below) o People and Skills
Conditional allocations	All places across the UK will receive a conditional allocation from the UKSPF. To access their allocation, each place will be asked to set out measurable outcomes that reflect local needs and opportunities. These should inform the interventions they wish to deliver. Places will be able to choose from investment across three investment priorities of communities and place, local business and people and skills.
Conditional allocations, include:	Allocations for areas are detailed at link. These include the following for Unitary Authorities: · £129.5m for Cornwall and Isles of Scilly · £4.4m for Dorset · £4.1m for Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole · £3.1m for Plymouth · £2m for Swindon · £1.7m for Torbay · £5.7m for Wiltshire And for Lower Tier Authorities and Upper Tier Authorities · Exeter £1.4m · Somerset £7.2m

Supporting local businesses

As per the Prospectus (2.4) “The supporting local business investment priority will enable places to fund interventions that support local businesses to thrive, innovate and grow.” There is then a summary of objectives of this investment priority, together with examples of Outputs and Outcomes.

How the fund will be administered

Per the Prospectus (4.3) “The UKSPF is establishing new relationships between the UK government, devolved administrations, local government and local partners across the UK. We are putting people that know their places best, front and centre in shaping decisions.” Reading on what this seems to mean is Local Authorities will prepare and be responsible for delivery of an Investment Plan; which first purpose is to allow them to utilise the funding allocated to their geographical area. Further:

• The Fund will operate UK-wide and use the financial assistance powers in the UK Internal Market Act 2020 to deliver funding to places across the UK.
• The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities will oversee the Fund at UK level,
• Lead local authorities for each area will have flexibility over how they deliver the Fund. They may wish to use a mix of competitions for grant funding, procurement, commissioning or deliver some activity through in-house teams
• UK Government “strongly encourage lead local authorities to work with other authorities (district, county or unitary councils where relevant) to agree and commission people and skills activity, or business support activity over a larger scale representative of the full local labour market or business base. Lead local authorities will be asked to set out their approach in their investment plan.”
• Each lead local authority in England, Scotland and Wales will be able to use up to 4% of their allocation by default to undertake necessary Fund administration, such as project assessment, contracting, monitoring and evaluation and ongoing stakeholder engagement.

Next stages and timeline to funding being made available to Local Authorities

As pr the Prospectus (10) the UK Government are now engaging with local authorities etc as a prelude to these local authorities working with stakeholders to develop local investment plans. Local partners (including as per 5.1; Local businesses and investors”) should support lead local authorities for each place to develop an investment plan.

UK Government are making £20,000 available per lead local authority or £40,000 for each Mayoral Combined Authority and the Greater London Authority in England to undertake initial preparatory work for the Fund, including developing their local investment plan for submission in the summer. This is then schedules to be followed by:

• Anticipated date for first investment plans to be approved – October 2022 onwards

• Anticipated first payment to be made to lead local authorities– October 2022 onwards

PKF Francis Clark

We will be keeping an eye of developments and, for example, will be looking to share details of “competitions for grant funding” when/ if these are used as part of the delivery mechanism for Supporting Local Businesses in the Local Authorities across the South-West/ South.

I also feel that some of my colleagues maybe useful points of reference for Local Authorities in shaping their Investment Plans; be it for ideas and input on market deficiencies in funding for businesses that allocations of UK Shared Prosperity Fund could address and/ or delivery – on the later a couple of my colleagues in particular have been involved in assisting clients with grant applications and / or sitting on grant panels for a number of years (decades even).