Guidance

Plan for Neighbourhoods: Regeneration Plan guidance

Published 9 June 2025

Introduction 

In March 2025, the Plan for Neighbourhoods prospectus confirmed a £1.5 billion programme of investment in 75 areas across the UK. Over the next decade we will provide places with up to £20 million each to support them in creating thriving places, stronger communities and taking back control of their local area.

Places receiving funding have established Neighbourhoods Boards to put local people at the centre of defining their town’s future and deciding how to use the funding. As the next step in unlocking this vital investment, each place will agree a Regeneration Plan with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). The plan will set out how they will use this funding to embed locally-led decision making, select the right projects and programmes to address the challenges in their local area and how they will transform their place over the next decade.

All 75 places receiving funding through the Plan for Neighbourhoods fund are required to submit a Regeneration Plan to MHCLG by the end of 2025.

All 75 places receiving funding through the Plan for Neighbourhoods fund must submit a Regeneration Plan to MHCLG by the end of November 2025. Before submitting their Plans, Neighbourhood Boards must engage extensively with their local community to develop a plan that reflects local people’s priorities and vision for change over the next decade - the people living and working in these areas are best placed to identify these challenges and inform the solutions to deliver the strategic objectives of the programme: creating thriving places, stronger communities and empowering people to take back control.

This guidance provides information on submitting and agreeing a Regeneration Plan with MHCLG, as the next step in unlocking the flow of programme delivery funding from the 2026 to 2027 financial year. It is split into 2 sections:

Section 1: How the fund will operate

• Funding allocations
• Investment periods
• Funding flexibilities
• How funding can be spent
• Considerations when delivering activity

Section 2: How to draft and submit your Regeneration Plan

• Preparing your plan
• Drafting your plan
• Refining your plan and vision
• Submitting your plan
• How we will assess plans
• Acceptance of plans and funding release

This guidance should be read in conjunction with with our previous publications:

• Plan for Neighbourhoods prospectus – which sets out the policy objectives of the programme and funding allocations
• pre-approved intervention list - which sets out the interventions which can be pursued through the programme without the need to provide a business case
• list of powers for each nation - which sets out the existing powers available to communities and local authorities in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales

A glossary of key terms is available for reference.

A Welsh language version will be published in due course.

Section 1: How the fund will operate

1. Funding allocations

Plan for Neighbourhoods programme funding will be delivered in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland via Section 50 of the UK Internal Market Act 2020.     

Funding will be paid by MHCLG to the respective accountable body for the funds, typically the relevant local authority unless an alternative arrangement has been agreed with the department.

All places will receive an equal allocation of funding, comprising revenue and capital funding. The full funding profile can be found in the Plan for Neighbourhoods: prospectus.

Revenue and capacity funding

Places will receive 3 tranches of revenue capacity funding as follows:

• £250,000 in the 2024 to 2025 financial year
• £200,000 in the 2025 to 2026 financial year – paid once your Neighbourhood Board membership and place boundary is agreed with MHCLG in Spring 2025
• £150,000 in  the 2026 to 2027 financial year  – paid following approval of your Regeneration Plan by MHCLG

Programme delivery funding

Payments of programme delivery funding (funding for capital and revenue interventions which support the delivery of the Regeneration Plan) will commence from the start of the 2026 to 2027 financial year, once a place’s Regeneration Plan has been accepted by MHCLG.

Payments will be made at the start of each financial year providing local areas with a predictable funding package and the certainty to  leverage private and philanthropic investment and align to other match funding sources.

2. Investment periods

This is a 10-year funding programme, designed to give places the certainty and flexibility to deliver long-term change via a comprehensive, integrated package of interventions.

The programme will be divided into 3 investment periods:

• Period 1: the 2026 to 2027 financial year to the 2029 to 2030 financial year (4 years)
• Period 2: the 2030 to 2031 financial year to the 2032 to 2033 financial year (3 years)
• Period 3: the 2033 to 2034 financial year to the 2035 to 2036 financial year (3 years)

A formalised progress review will take place at the end of each investment period. These review points will allow MHCLG to consider whether the programme’s 3 strategic objectives are being delivered effectively and how a place’s expenditure is progressing against their forecast. Further details on overall programme monitoring will be set out in forthcoming guidance in summer 2025.

Boards, in consultation with their local community, will be asked to develop a new investment plan at the start of each period. This should detail:

• the priorities identified by their local residents
• how that fits with the delivery of their overarching 10-year vision
• the interventions they wish to pursue
• how the programme delivery funding will be spent and managed across the next investment period

Payments for each investment period will be subject to plans being submitted and accepted. Regeneration Plans submitted before the end of 2025 will provide the baseline data for investment period 1.

Boards will be invited to submit plans for the second and third investment periods at least 6 months before the respective period commences.

More detail on how to develop your Regeneration Plan is provided in Section 2: How to draft and submit your plan.

3. Funding flexibilities

Places must set out realistic and deliverable expenditure forecasts in their Regeneration Plan and subsequent investment plans.     

This programme affords significant financial flexibilities to boards and the ability to forecast the intention to roll underspends into later years to support the delivery of their plan.  

Funding flexibilities are available in for both capacity and programme delivery funding.

Boards can spend their capacity funding allocation flexibly across the full lifespan of the programme. However, they are encouraged to maximise the use of the capacity funding throughout investment period 1, to build capacity locally and undertake the extensive engagement and consultation required with their community.

Boards can forecast their intention to spend delivery funding in later years of the programme. This forecast should be realistic and deliverable – aligned to their investment plan and accounting for local needs and priorities, as well as the deliverability of proposed interventions and risks.

Funding cannot be brought forward into earlier years of the programme, although places can borrow against what is a guaranteed revenue stream.         

Where a board forecasts that they will not spend their full allocation of delivery funding in the first investment period, that money can be rolled into subsequent investment periods. Annual payments of delivery funding will not be adjusted where a board’s forecast indicates that funding will not be spent in year, or in a given investment period, provided they forecast to spend the full value of the overall 10-year allocation.

To ensure the programme retains momentum in delivery   and demonstrates tangible change for communities as soon as possible, boards must have consideration for the following parameters:

• within each investment period, the board must forecast to spend at least 25% of your cumulative allocation for that investment period
• by the end of Year 7 (financial year 2032 to 2033 and the end of the second investment period), the board must have spent at least 50% of the cumulative total allocation

Where a place forecasts to spend less than these percentages, they may be asked to submit additional information to MHCLG to evidence that their forecast is credible and deliverable.

At the end of each financial year places   will be asked to submit an expenditure profile for that year, alongside a refreshed forecast. These reports will be used to monitor progress of the programme and is not subject to approval from MHCLG – however, payment for the subsequent financial year cannot be made until an expenditure profile and refreshed forecast is submitted.

4. How funding can be spent

Eligible activities for capacity funding  

Guidance on the use of capacity funding was set out in our prospectus  (under ‘Funding profile’).

Capacity funding should not be used to fund the early delivery of programme interventions (such as projects and programmes). It is to support the board’s ability to engage the local community and build the capacity of the board and local voluntary and community sector, to support the development of the Regeneration Plan or the technical elements of plan development and delivery.   

In line with the government’s commitment to reducing the use of consultancy and to help build sustainable local capacity and capabilities, boards should limit use of procured support and aim to deliver capacity funding activities using ‘in house’ resource. We would also encourage boards to consider how to build capacity locally, for example through community groups or charities delivering community engagement on the board’s behalf.

Eligible activities for programme delivery funding

Programme delivery funding must be spent on the delivery of any of the activities included in the interventions list, or on programme management costs.

Pre-approved interventions

Activities set out in our pre-approved interventions list have already been assessed as having a strong case for investment, value for money and benefit-to-cost ratio.

Boards must choose which interventions they would like to pursue based on the priorities identified through their community engagement and consultation, explaining in their investment plan how this activity reflects the demands and needs of local people.

Places do not need to deliver against all interventions on the list, but should utilise those most appropriate for their needs and challenges.

Interventions are not explicitly tied to one programme objective. An intervention may deliver across any or all of the strategic objectives of the programme: thriving places, stronger communities and taking back control.

This pre-approved list of interventions is intentionally broad in scope, and you should consider how their proposals could fit into this list in the first instance.  If you consider one of your proposed activities to fall outside the scope of our list, contact the central Plan for Neighbourhoods team in MHCLG  at the earliest opportunity at pfncorrespondence@communities.gov.uk.

We will offer advice to places in relation to whether their proposal can fit under the list of existing interventions or can be pursued as an off-menu intervention.

Off-menu interventions

Boards can also spend funding on ‘off-menu’ interventions - activities which do not fit within the list of pre-approved interventions list - where they agree a business case with MHCLG demonstrating:

• how this delivers one or more of the strategic objectives of the programme
• how it delivers value for money
• why it does not fit within the pre-approved interventions list

Where a place wishes to pursue an off-menu intervention, they should confirm this in their Regeneration Plan and we will review this proposal as part of the assessment of the plan. If we are content that the proposed activity fits, in principle, with the programme scope and overarching objectives, the Board, supported by the local authority, will be invited to submit a short business  case to MHCLG by an agreed date us for consider. This will apply regardless of the value of the proposed intervention.

Places should not spend ‘at risk’ on proposed off-menu activities. Expenditure for such interventions should be profiled appropriately in expenditure forecasts, allowing time for business cases to be developed, considered by MHCLG and approved prior to ‘off-menu’ expenditure occurring.

Management costs

The Neighbourhood Board can decide to use a proportion of delivery funding towards management costs. This may include the cost of delivering a secretariat function for the board, staff costs to support the appraisal and selection of projects or other such costs which support delivery of the programme in your community.

Management costs must be proportionate and kept to the minimum required to support effective delivery of the programme. Please note that if MHCLG deems the management spend to be in excess of genuine business need, the Department may opt to intervene.

The board should carefully consider how much funding and resource is required to support the day-to-day management of the funding, whilst also making sure that a significant proportion of delivery funding is retained for interventions to address the local community’s priorities and needs.  

The board should engage with the respective accountable body to decide what resources are required to meet both the delivery, assurance and compliance requirements of the fund.

Publicity and branding

Management costs funding can also be used for branding and publicity activity.

Branding and publicity play a key role in ensuring effective promotion of the Plan for Neighbourhoods programme activity in your local area. 

Further details will be set out in guidance to be published in summer 2025.

Activities not eligible for funding

The following costs should not be included in any Plan for Neighbourhoods programme expenditure:

• using the fund to lobby (via an external firm or in-house staff) and undertake activities to influence, or attempt to influence, Parliament, government or political activity including the receipt of Plan for Neighbourhoods funding, or attempting to influence legislative or regulatory action
• payments for activities of a party political or exclusively religious nature
• VAT reclaimable from HMRC
• gifts, or payments for gifts or donations
• statutory fines, criminal fines or penalties
• payments for works or activities which the lead local authority, project deliverer, end beneficiary, or any member of their partnership has a statutory duty to undertake, or that are fully funded by other sources
• contingencies and contingent liabilities
• dividends
• bad debts, costs resulting from the deferral of payments to creditors, or winding up a company
• expenses in respect of litigation, unfair dismissal or other compensation
• costs incurred by individuals in setting up and contributing towards private pension schemes

When spending can commence

Places can start spending on interventions once they receive the first annual payment of programme expenditure. This will be within the 2026 to 2027 financial year, and in April 2026 for places who have had their Regeneration Plan accepted by this date. If your plan is accepted after April 2026, the payment will occur at the earliest opportunity after its approval.

While capacity funding should support activity to ensure readiness for when programme delivery funding starts to flow, it must not  be spent on delivering interventions.

Places must not spend programme delivery funding on off-menu interventions until they have received approval on their business cases.

5. Considerations when delivering activity

Alignment of activities

Interventions delivered through the Plan for Neighbourhoods programme should align with existing local, regional and national delivery arrangements.

When considering delivery, places should engage with the relevant stakeholders where appropriate, to ensure that proposed interventions align with, and do not duplicate, existing programmes or policies.

Our pre-approved interventions and list of powers includes details about the stakeholders that should be engaged or consulted when pursuing those different areas.

For example, as outlined in the published list of pre-approved interventions, if a place wished to focus funding on hotspot policing, they should engage the local police force prior to delivery of the proposed activity.

The board should also work in partnership with their local authority throughout the development of the plan, including discussing the list of interventions and powers to be used. In many cases, the local authority will need to formally agree through its own structures to deploy powers or interventions where they interact with council responsibilities (for example, planning permission for a new cycle path).

Alignment of activities in Northern Ireland

In Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland Executive departments are responsible for delivery of a number of the programme’s pre-approved interventions. Places must ensure that interventions delivered through the Plan for Neighbourhoods programme are aligned with NI Executive’s departmental priorities and policies.

They may wish to work with representatives from departments directly via NI Executive representatives on Neighbourhood Boards or via their usual Department for Communities Local Government Division point of contact.

Other funding sources

While there is no mandatory requirement for match funding of interventions, we strongly encourage boards to explore opportunities to access additional funding. This could include other grants from the public or third sector, or crowding in more sustainable private or philanthropic investment to maximise value for money and impact of the fund.

If there are major employers in the area, boards should consider working with them and any relevant trade unions to see how they could help develop and support projects for their workforces.

Selecting projects to be funded

Neighbourhood Boards are responsible for developing the Regeneration Plan on behalf of local residents. They are responsible for leading the community engagement necessary to identify the interventions which match the preferences and priorities of local communities and working with the respective accountable body for funding to select the specific projects and initiatives to fund.  Projects may comprise funding for at least one of the following:

• a single activity (such as refurbishing a building)
• a programme of activities (such as a programme of youth activities or a programme of small grants to organisations)

Places can choose how best to allocate funds in their local area, for example by using the following routes for delivery:

• grant to public or private organisations
• commissioning third party organisations
• procuring service provision
• in-house local authority service provisions

When deciding the delivery route, places should take account of the Cabinet Office Grants Functional Standard and Managing Public Money principles. Competition for projects is the default approach for selecting recipients of public grants and often helps achieve the best value for money.

We encourage boards to utilise local suppliers for their projects, provided that any procurement is undertaken in line with the relevant procurement rules. Your council’s S151 officer can advise on procurement rules.

The Neighbourhood Board should engage the relevant accountable body to determine the level of information required for any project or programme selection processes   , accounting for the need to progress the programme at pace while balancing propriety, regularity, value for money and deliverability. The proposed process should consider legal obligations, accountable body, and fund requirements. It should also consider how conflicts of interest will be managed.

Where an intervention would commit an organisation to future expenditure beyond the lifetime of the Plan for Neighbourhoods programme (for example the local authority being committed to ongoing maintenance of a new park or facility established using programme funds), future sustainability should be considered within the selection process.

Awarding funding to projects

The Neighbourhood Board should engage the relevant accountable body to decide how best to manage project appraisals, due diligence, awards to organisations and contractual and payment arrangements (whether projects are paid in advance, or arrears). They should ensure that relevant obligations are passed on to grant recipients to manage delivery risks and ensure compliance.

The board should work with the relevant accountable body to agree and implement a clear process monitoring the progress of projects they have funded and to recover funding where beneficiaries do not comply with fund parameters, UK law or any local requirements. The process should include a clear mechanism for change control, detailing how changes to projects will be managed.

Fraud risk

As funding to deliver the Regeneration Plan will likely take the form of onward awards to other delivery organisations, accountable bodies will be responsible for ensuring that fraud is a key consideration in all spend activity and that the following minimum standards are met:

• follow the Grants Functional Standards on Fraud Risk Assessment (FRA) – ‘7: Risk, Controls and Assurance (PDF)’ pages 15 to 19
• undertake FRAs at an appropriate level to each individual project dependent on risk
• ensure that Plan for Neighbourhoods spend is undertaken in accordance with effective authority fraud prevention policy and procedure, and via engagement with colleagues specialising in this area
• ensure that relevant evidence and data to prevent fraud is gathered as part of due diligence undertaken ahead of releasing funds
• implement reporting and monitoring requirements that will identify irregularities or issues in use of funds which can be investigated further
• store and file all work undertaken on FRA in the event of any issues or audit requirements

MHCLG may request to see work related to fraud risk assessment where it has concerns about how funds are being administered.

Section 2: How to develop and submit a Regeneration Plan 

1. Preparing your plan

Places must submit a Regeneration Plan to MHCLG by 28 November 2025, setting out their strategic vision for the 10-year period and their more detailed investment and delivery plans for the first investment period (from the 2026 to 2027 financial year to the 2029 to 2030 financial year).

Payments of programme delivery funding will only commence once this plan has been submitted to MHCLG, assessed and accepted.

The plan must be co-designed with local stakeholders and communities, underpinned by evidence of engagement to reflect local investment priorities for the short, medium and long-term.

It will be used as the basis for agreeing the release of programme funding to each place and agreeing a memorandum of agreement with the accountable body. 

Places should prepare and submit their plan using information from this page, and guidance provided in the following documents:

• prospectus
• pre-approved interventions
• list of powers
• governance and boundary guidance

Each Neighbourhood Board will receive a tailored data pack detailing metrics across the programme’s three strategic objectives, and polling on local sentiment around investment priorities for their area. This data can be used alongside your wider community and stakeholder engagement findings, and other data sources, to inform your plan.

Responsibilities of the Neighbourhood Board

The Neighbourhood Board in each place is responsible for developing their Regeneration Plan in partnership with their local stakeholders and communities.  

The board should:

• work closely with the local authority (and/or equivalent accountable body) to agree and set out in their plan the processes and procedures that will be in place to manage the fund
• develop and embed an accountability structure that ensures the board can make effective decisions when allocating funding to projects, whilst also allowing the local authority (and/or equivalent accountable body) to maintain oversight of financial decisions
• publish the Regeneration Plan on an appropriate website following confirmation from MHCLG, to allow broader ownership of the plan, ongoing stakeholder engagement and transparency - sensitive information may be removed before publishing

Prior to submission, the plan must have been reviewed and approved by the Neighbourhood Board. The Chief Financial Officer from the local authority acting as accountable body, or an individual with responsibility for finance where an alternative governance arrangement is in place, must also review the plan and confirm that funds will be used appropriately and in accordance with the requirements set by MHCLG. There is no requirement for sign-off from elected members

Your Mayoral Combined Authority (where applicable) and relevant MPs should have been consulted during the development of your plan.

2. Drafting your plan

Your Regeneration Plan must include 2 components:

• 10-year vision: a PDF document setting out the strategic vision for your place and where, why and how funds will be targeted and managed over the 10-year period, taking account of the local area’s challenges and opportunities
• 4-year investment plan: a more detailed plan outlining how you will use your funding in the first investment period of the programme, including detail about:
  • how you have engaged your local community and involved them in design of your investment plan
  • the outcomes you intend to target based on local context
  • the interventions they wish to prioritise
  • when you intend to spend funding
  • the proposed route to market and your management arrangements for the funding

We will use your 10-year vision to understand your vision for the local area, your strategic aims and how you propose to manage your funding. See the 10-year vision content checklist for information on what content must be included.

We will use your 4-year investment plan to understand your plans for the first investment period. The information you provide will set the baseline against which we will monitor the progress of your delivery and expenditure, and to tailor our offer of support to assist you with delivery.

Your Regeneration Plan should:

• set a clear vision for the place, including appropriate short, medium and long-term objectives which take account of the place’s wider context and ambitions
• present clear evidence of the needs, challenges, strengths and weaknesses of their area
• present a plan for investment which has clear strategic fit with the programme’s three strategic objectives, reflects community priorities and builds on evidence of what works
• clearly demonstrate how the local community and key stakeholders have been involved in shaping the future vision and proposed programme of investment, and how this will continue throughout the programme lifetime and beyond
• present an indicative expenditure profile for your place, based on your best estimate of when capacity and programme funding will be spend over the next 10 years
• demonstrate that you will have appropriate system and controls in place to ensure that funding is spent compliantly and effectively

It is not mandatory for a Regeneration Plan to target funding towards delivering against all 3 of the Plan for Neighbourhoods programme objectives. However where one or more of the objectives will not be delivered you must explain why, alongside evidence that data and extensive community consultation has informed this decision.  

Places should include as much detail as possible about priorities for funding and proposed interventions in their plan. It is not essential to include project-level information. However, if you have already identified individual projects and programmes that you wish to fund, you are encouraged to include detail about these in the plan.

3. Refining your plan and vision

As the programme progresses, we expect boards will want to amend their plan  to reflect further community engagement, react to external events, align with match-funding sources and respond to the practicalities of delivery.

We anticipate your 10-year vision  to remain broadly static – its purpose is a long-term document setting out strategic ambition. There will be opportunity to refresh this at the end of each investment period and, by exception, you may also wish to refresh this in response to further community engagement or local economic shocks.

Your 4-year investment plan is not expected to be an exhaustive document that provides detail about all interventions that will be funded across the first 4 years - we expect and encourage you to refine your plan as you begin delivery and select projects to support.

We will work with places throughout the duration of the programme to capture the latest updates to your Regeneration Plan, and will publish further detail about the process for this.

We will publish further detail about the process for this as part of forthcoming guidance around the approach to monitoring and performance management.

4. Submitting your plan

Submit your Regeneration Plan by 28 November 2025.

We will update this page with a link to the submission portal in due course.

You should submit your plan once it has been approved by the Neighbourhood Board and any other necessary approvals. Draft plans will not be accepted by the online portal.

If a Regeneration Plan contains sensitive information this should be highlighted to us upon submission, so that the information can be handled appropriately. 

We recognise that places are at different stages of readiness  - that is why we have made the online tool available now and provided a long ‘window’ for submissions.

The form should be completed by the nominated representative for each place. Any feedback we provide or questions we have on your submission will only go to the email address used when completing the form. We will ask you to provide a ‘secondary contact’ - this person will only be contacted if the nominated representative is no longer available.

We strongly encourage places to submit plans as early as possible to allow adequate time for assessment and engagement with you on the content, so as to  issue a memorandum of understanding to  release the first tranche of funding in spring 2026. Submitting an incomplete plan is likely to result in delays to approval as we will need to contact you to seek further information to complete our assessment.

What we will ask you to provide

The online submission form will ask for information in the sections outlined below.

We have also published the Regeneration Plan submission questions to support you with preparing your submission.

Place and secondary contact information

We will ask you to confirm details of:

• the place you are submitting on behalf of
• a secondary contact for your place

Community engagement and support

We will ask you to confirm:

• how you have engaged your local community and stakeholders to develop your Regeneration Plan
• whether you have consulted with your Mayoral Combined Authority on the content for your Regeneration Plan (if applicable)
• whether you have consulted on the MP for your place, and that they have reviewed your plan prior to submission
• whether other relevant MPs have been consulted on, or reviewed, the plan (if applicable)

Community engagement is at the heart of the Plan for Neighbourhoods programme. Plans must reflect local priorities and evidence extensive resident engagement. They must be clear about how the community’s views have shaped and influenced the proposed interventions put forward – this will form a key element of the assessment.

Engagement with key stakeholders is also critical to ensure that interventions you will deliver align to existing and planned activity both locally and nationally.

You must consult with your Mayoral Combined Authority to ensure alignment with local plans and strategies – where you have not, you should explain why.

You must consult on your plan with relevant MPs:

• the MP who sits on your board should review your plan before it is submitted
• if another MP’s constituency has a geographical share of more than 25% of your place boundary, that MP should also review the plan before it is submitted
• if an MP’s constituency has a geographical share of between 10 and 25% of your place boundary, that MPs should be consulted on any areas of your plan that impact their constituency

Where you have not consulted all relevant MPs, you must explain why not.

We may request revisions, set conditions, or reject plans that contain:

• insufficient evidence of community and stakeholder involvement in the design of the plan
• inadequate arrangements to involve the community and stakeholders in the ongoing delivery of the plan

Your 10-year vision

We will ask you to upload your 10-year vision and any supporting documents.

This should contain all elements listed in the 10-year vision content checklist.

Your 4-year investment plan

We will ask you about what challenges you will address and your priorities for investment in the first investment period across each of the 3 programme objectives:

• thriving places
• stronger communities
• taking back control

If you do not propose to deliver against one or more of the objectives, you can tell us in this section and explain why this is the case. You should explain how data and community consultation has informed this decision.

Interventions

We will ask you to confirm which interventions from the pre-approved intervention list you expect to deliver in the first investment period. You do not need to tell us how much you propose to spend on each intervention.

Your response is indicative. We understand that interventions may change as you deliver your plan, however you should provide your best indication of which interventions you intend to fund based on current information.

We are asking for this information to understand which types of activity you are proposing in the first investment period and how this aligns with what you have told us elsewhere in the plan. This information will also help us to evaluate the programme.

Off-menu interventions

We will ask you to confirm whether you wish to pursue any interventions that are not on the pre-approved intervention list.

The information you provide will help us to assess whether your proposed off-menu intervention could fit within our pre-approved list, or whether a business case will be required.

You may propose more than one off-menu intervention. Where you do, we will assess each intervention individually and provide a decision on each.

Payment profile and spend forecast

We will ask you to provide an annual expenditure forecast for the duration of the programme showing:

• how much revenue and capital programme delivery funding you expect to spend each year
• how much capacity funding you have spent to date and when you expect to spend remaining capacity funding

We will also ask you to provide a forecast of how your Neighbourhood Board intends to spend your programme delivery funding on interventions for the first 4 years of the programme.

The forecasts you provide should:

• indicate when and how funding will be spent based on the development of your plan to date
• be consistent with the narrative put forward elsewhere in your plan
• reflect when the local authority expects to spend, or has spent, the funding on Plan for Neighbourhoods interventions or management activity, in line with their normal accounting practices

Your funding for the first 4 years should be apportioned across the following categories based upon what you expect to spend funding on:

• cohesion
• education and opportunity
• health and wellbeing
• housing
• regeneration, high streets and heritage
• safety and security
• transport
• work, productivity and skills
• off-menu interventions
• management costs
• unknown uses of funding

Projects

Where available, you may provide information regarding any projects that the board has identified to be delivered within the first investment period.

Boards are not expected to have a suite of fully defined ‘projects’ at the investment plan stage and will not be disadvantaged if they cannot include project-level detail in their investment plan.

Capacity funding

We will ask you:

• how you have used capacity funding since your Neighbourhood Board and place boundary confirmation submission to MHCLG
• how you plan to use any remaining capacity funding allocations

Management costs

We will ask you:

• whether you plan to use programme funding to cover management costs
• if so, how the funding will be used and whether you have received approval from your Neighbourhood Board
• to confirm that your Neighbourhood Board has approved this use of programme delivery funding

Milestones

We will ask you to confirm the milestones for delivery in relation to:

• consulting the community
• running a feasibility study
• call for projects and project selection rounds
• commissioning services
• project procurement

You will be able to add multiple milestones under each of the above categories if required and are encouraged to provide as much detail as possible in this section.

We will use this information to understand how you will deliver your programme of activity in your local area. It will set a baseline against which we can review your progress and allow us to review how we can offer support to your place to support delivery.

You will then have the opportunity to add any bespoke milestones if relevant, where we will ask you for a brief description, summary and estimated start and completion dates.

Management of funds

We will ask you to provide:

• assurance that public funds will be managed appropriately and in line with relevant standards and legislation
• a short description of how your Neighbourhood Board will select projects for investment, including how the local authority and any other parties will support this process and be involved in decision making and how any conflicts will be managed
• detail on how awards to the local authority itself for the delivery will be evaluated, to ensure a robust and fair process is followed, and how conflicts of interest will be managed
• a short description of how your oversight functions will be carried out by the accountable body, or other parties, including the award of funding to project and programme delivery organisations, paying projects and ensuring they are delivered effectively and compliantly
• confirmation that you have made appropriate arrangements to ensure compliance in the following areas delivery of your investment plan:
• environmental impacts and environmental duty
• public sector equality duty (England, Scotland and Wales) or Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act (Northern Ireland)
• public contract regulations
• Subsidy Control Act 2022 and state aid regulations
• confirmation you have a programme risk register and fraud risk assessment, with appropriate arrangements in place to manage risks identified

We will use this information to assess your readiness for delivery and to review how we can offer support to your place.

We appreciate that places may be at different stages of development for delivery of their plan and not all systems and processes may be established yet. Where this is the case, please tell us by when those systems and processes will be in place.

We will require places to have established systems by the time that they start spending delivery funding, to ensure spend is compliant and well managed.

Available resources and skills

We will ask you for a description of the resource, experience and skills that you will have available to support delivery of your 4-year investment plan. This may include resource from the board, local authority, other organisations you are involving in delivery or procured resource.

You should also detail how capability and capacity is being developed and utilised within the place, for example by:

• civic organisations or town councils that are supporting the operation of the Neighbourhood Board by undertaking the secretariat function
• community groups providing thematic knowledge and support

Additional support

You will be asked about any further areas of support you require with delivery of the programme so that we can support places appropriately.

Declarations

We will ask you to confirm:

• the Neighbourhood Board has reviewed and approved the Regeneration Plan prior to submission
• the Chief Financial Officer (in NI)/Section 151 officer (in England and Wales)/Section 95 officer (in Scotland) from the local authority acting as accountable body, or an individual with responsibility for finance where an alternative governance arrangement is in place, has reviewed the Regeneration Plan and confirms that the funds will be used appropriately and in accordance with the requirements set by MHCLG
• the Neighbourhood Board has ensured the interventions contained in the Regeneration Plan are aligned with the policies and priorities of relevant Northern Ireland Executive’s Programme for Government
• you have considered the public sector equality duty (England, Scotland and Wales) or Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act (Northern Ireland) when designing your investment plan

5. How we will assess plans

Once we receive plans, we will complete rolling assessments with the aim of considering all plans by March 2026, in time for payment of the first tranche of programme funding in April 2026.

We will assess each plan on its own merit. Places achieving early submission and acceptance of a plan will have more time to secure match funding, and prepare activities before funding is released. This may be beneficial for the early commencement of activities.

Assessment overview

Plans will be subject to a light-touch assessment. The assessment process is not competitive. Its purpose is to provide assurance to government that each place’s plan is robust, realistic and has community-led design and engagement at its core.

We will seek assurance from each plan that:

• the activities being pursued by a place fit with the Plan for Neighbourhoods programme objectives
• the place has a credible and realistic expenditure forecast, fitting with the funding flexibility rules
• the local community and key stakeholders have been key in informing and shaping the plan and will be actively involved in evolution and delivery of the plan throughout the next decade
• appropriate governance arrangements will be in place to fully realise the intended role of the Neighbourhood Board and to allow the board to work in partnership with the accountable body to deliver the programme successfully
• appropriate control processes will be in place for management of public funds

Where ‘off-menu’ interventions are proposed within a place’s 4-year investment plan, these will be assessed as part of the assessment of the Regeneration Plan.

Where queries or areas of concern are raised during the course of the assessment, we may seek further information or request changes to the plan.

Assessment outcome

Once assessments are complete, we will confirm the assessment outcome to each place.

We may provide conditional acceptance of Regeneration Plans, if we consider them sufficiently robust to be accepted but require key actions to be taken either prior to release of the first tranche of programme delivery funding or in the delivery phase.

The outcome provided to each place will include:

• confirmation that the Regeneration Plan has been accepted or not
• any conditions of acceptance and timescales for completion
• any additional considerations for the place to take into account in plan delivery
• where applicable, invitation to submit a business case for any proposed ‘off-menu’ interventions

6. Acceptance of plans and funding release

Once a place’s Regeneration Plan is accepted, a memorandum of understanding will be agreed between the local authority (as the accountable body) and MHCLG.

Where pre-contract conditions are included in the acceptance of a Regeneration Plan, these must be satisfied before the memorandum of understanding is agreed.

The first annual payment of programme delivery funding will be released in April 2026 or once the memorandum of understanding has been executed if this is later.

In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the final agreed plans will then be shared with devolved governments upon acceptance to support coordination and transparency.

Assessing outline business cases

We will invite places to submit an outline business case where we have confirmed that their off-menu intervention was acceptable in principle.

A template for the outline business case will be provided.

The business case:

• should present a robust rationale for the intervention and analysis of its value for money
• will be subject to our business case approval process, which will apply regardless of the value of the proposed intervention

We will confirm the outcome of the approval process.

Where a business case is approved by MHCLG, the place may spend funding on the proposed intervention. Where it is rejected by MHCLG the place should find an alternative use for the funding ring-fenced for the proposed off-menu activity.

Glossary of key terms

Regeneration Plan: To be submitted to MHCLG by 28 November. Comprises a 10-year vision and more detailed 4-year investment plan, co-designed with local stakeholders and communities, underpinned by evidence of engagement to reflect local investment priorities for the short, medium and long-term.

Neighbourhood Board: a group established within each Plan for Neighbourhoods place, made up of those with a deep connection to the local area such as local businesses, grassroots campaigners, workplace representatives, faith and community leaders and any other relevant local stakeholders and organisations. The Neighbourhood Board is responsible for developing the Regeneration Plan for their place and selecting interventions to deliver the plan, supported by the Accountable Body.

Place boundary: the agreed geographic area of a Plan for Neighbourhoods place. Funding for the place will be spent for the benefit of the community in this area.

Accountable Body: the organisation or entity responsible for ensuring that public funds are distributed fairly and effectively, and that funds have been managed in line with the Nolan Principles and Managing Public Money principles. In each Plan for Neighbourhoods place, the accountable body for the funds will typically be the relevant local authority, unless an alternative arrangement has been agreed with MHCLG.

Revenue capacity funding: funding to be used for programme readiness activities such as establishing and embedding necessary governance structures, building local capacity and capability and undertaking community engagement.

Ten-Year vision: Part of the Regeneration Plan. A document setting out the strategic vision for your place and where, why and how funds will be targeted and managed over the 10-year period, taking account of the local area’s challenges and opportunities.

Four-year investment plan: Part of the Regeneration Plan. A more detailed plan outlining how you will use your funding in the first investment period of the programme.

First investment period: the 2026 to 2027 financial year to the 2029 to 2030 financial year (4 years)

Pre-approved interventions: activities that can be pursued by boards without providing a business case. The interventions listed all have a strong case for investment, value for money and benefit-to-cost ratio.

Off menu intervention: a Plan for Neighbourhoods project activity that does not appear on MHCLG’s pre-approved interventions list.

Business case: to be submitted to MHCLG to support a proposed Off-Menu Intervention. An assessment of the proposed project, identifying its strategic context, potential benefits, and preferred option for delivery. The business case must evidence how the off-menu intervention achieves value for money.

Capital programme delivery funding: funding to deliver capital interventions which support delivery of your Regeneration Plan. This may be spent on pre-approved interventions, or interventions not within this list where these are agreed with MHCLG prior to investment.

Revenue programme delivery funding: funding to deliver revenue interventions which support delivery of your Regeneration Plan. This may be spent on pre-approved interventions, or interventions not within this list where these are agreed with MHCLG prior to investment.

At risk spend: refers to funding spent on intervention(s) that have not received explicit agreement from MHCLG.

Management costs: delivery funding can be used for management costs. This may include the cost of delivering a secretariat function for the board, staff costs to support the coordination of the programme in your place or the appraisal and selection of projects or other such costs which support delivery of the programme in your community.

Memorandum of understanding: agreement between the local authority (as accountable body) and MHCLG made on acceptance of the place’s Regeneration Plan. Agreement of the MOU allows release of programme delivery funding.