Capital regeneration projects: accounting officer assessment
Updated 6 March 2024
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1. Background and Context
The second round of the Levelling Up Fund concluded in January 2023, with £2.1bn of cross department Levelling Up Fund (LUF) money fully allocated to 111 bids from across the UK.
Since then, the department identified just over £200 million of unallocated departmental funding for use on levelling up. Funding must start to be delivered in 23/24. For this reason, the department has opted not to run a further open bidding process, which would also be disproportionately burdensome for places given the funding available. The department has therefore chosen to award funding to bids on the LUF round 2 shortlist because this contains a pipeline of rigorously assessed bids which have been judged as value for money and deliverable.
2. Assessment against the Accounting Officer standards
a. Regularity
There are no regularity concerns because the department holds the powers to issue grants to local authorities across England under Section 31 of the Local Government Act 2003.
An equalities impact assessment was undertaken and submitted to ministers for consideration prior to decisions being finalised.
Funding awards will be provisional subject to further checks on subsidy control.
Overall assessment
My assessment is that the regularity test is satisfied.
b. Propriety
Criteria were applied to the shortlist to drive the selection of bids for funding. These were as follows:
- Focus only on bids from England and from the ‘regeneration and town centre’ theme because funding is coming from DLUHC budgets rather than cross-departmental LUF budgets
- Local authorities to be capped at 1 successful bid only to maximise the number of places that receive this funding
- Fund all regeneration and town centre bids above a minimum score of 75 (to ensure quality) that are below £10m in value to maximise the number of places that receive investment from this funding
- Fund regeneration and town centre bids above the minimum score of 75 that are from places in need of levelling up as identified in the Levelling Up White Paper until the target quantum was met (no cap on bid value)
This decision saw just over £210 million invested in 16 places in 6 English regions. These are listed at annex A.
Overall assessment
My assessment is that the propriety test is satisfied.
c. Value for Money
All 16 bids had already been rigorously assessed against the published LUF assessment framework. This included a value for money assessment. These bids all have a VFM category of medium or high. To further safeguard value for money, reporting and evaluation requirements will be placed on grant recipients to help monitor the delivery of expected outputs and outcomes.
Overall assessment
My assessment is that the value for money test is satisfied.
d. Feasibility
Delivery of the 16 bids is feasible. The package is affordable and will be funded from departmental budgets. The deliverability of individual bids had been tested through the prior LUF assessment.
We will oversee the delivery of them under our established LUF delivery framework.
Overall assessment
My assessment is that the feasibility test is satisfied.
3. Conclusion
The above represents a summary of the key points which informed my decision. If any of these factors materially change during the lifetime of this project, I undertake to prepare a revised summary, setting out my assessment of them.
This summary will be published on the government’s website (GOV.UK). Copies will be deposited in the Library of the House of Commons and sent to the Comptroller and Auditor General and Treasury Officer of Accounts.
Sarah Healey
15 March 2023
Annex A
| Local Authority | Project | Grant value |
|---|---|---|
| Blackpool Borough Council | Hotel Indigo - Former Post Office Redevelopment | £8,000,000.00 |
| Tendring District Council | Dovercourt Town Centre Improvement Corridor | £6,652,251.00 |
| Northumberland County Council | Ashington Town Centre Transformation | £16,427,044.00 |
| Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council | Stalybridge Town Centre Regeneration | £19,906,620.00 |
| Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council | Principal Areas of Growth | £19,990,111.00 |
| East Suffolk Council | Lowestoft Seafront Jubilee Parade Regeneration Project | £4,305,874.80 |
| Salford City Council | Eccles Town Centre Transformation project | £5,400,900.00 |
| North East Lincolnshire Council | Freshney Leisure Scheme | £20,000,000.00 |
| Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council | Tipton Town Centre Regeneration | £20,000,000.00 |
| Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council | Blackburn Business Innovation District Phase 1 - Skills and Education Campus | £20,000,000.00 |
| Wigan Council | #OurFutureAshton | £6,556,272.00 |
| London Borough of Waltham Forest | Child-Friendly Chingford | £8,433,525.00 |
| Wolverhampton City Council | Bilston Health and Regeneration Programme (HaRP) | £20,000,000.00 |
| Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council | Levelling Up Greater Eston | £19,978,713.00 |
| Kirklees Metropolitan Borough Council | Marsden New Mills Redevelopment Scheme | £5,604,369.00 |
| Borough of Telford and Wrekin | Economic Transformation Through Wellington Market Town Re-modelling | £9,807,453.00 |