Agenda item

The Assistant Director of Finance gave an overview to the Board of how the scheme would be operated during 2025/26.    The Government had announced in December 2024 that an additional or “transition” year of UK Shared Prosperity (UKSPF) funding would be allocated in 2025/26.  Previously the funding had been awarded directly to all lead authorities, however, unlike previous years the funding would now be awarded to the Greater Lincolnshire Combined County Authority (GLCCA) rather than South Kesteven District Council.  

GLCCA had confirmed that funding would be distributed to each of the Councils within the Greater Lincolnshire area.  South Kesteven District Council would be allocated £1,212,660 in UKSPF funds with a further £162,103 allocated via the Rural top-up funds. 

At the Council meeting on 27 February 2025, the Council had agreed the broad principles of the SKDC investment plan which had been submitted to GLCCA.   The GLCCA had then submitted a combined investment plan to the Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government which combined the investment plans of each of the Councils within the Greater Lincolnshire area on 30 April 2025.

As with the original fund, the fund priorities and themes remained the same and a copy of the investment plan submitted by South Kesteven to the GLCCA was appended to the report at Appendix A.  It was confirmed that approval of the investment plan was still awaited from Government, a response was expected in June 2025.

Responsibility of the fund would be with the GLCCA who had stated that there would be a review of the fund in September 2025.  Where a local authority was not able to fully distribute funds within its district by September 2025 the GLCCA had stated that any underspend would be pooled elsewhere across the Greater Lincolnshire area.   Officers stressed that funding allocated to South Kesteven District Council be committed by the end of September 2025.

It was anticipated that funds would not be released to the Council until June 2025 but this was dependent upon the MHCLG making the funds available to GLCCA.

The Terms of Reference for the UK Shared Prosperity Fund and Rural England Prosperity Fund Programme Board were agreed at Council on 22 May 2025 and were appended to the report at Appendix B.  At the Council meeting on 22 May 2025 the following delegation was also agreed:

Delegate authority to the Deputy Chief Executive and s151 Officer, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Finance, HR and Economic Development, to approve the grant allocations and to undertake any necessary actions including allocation of any uncommitted funds to specific interventions; and reallocation of funds and movement of revenue funds to capital expenditure.

The Board has a specific remit to set the direction for the programme and support the Lead Officer in overseeing the overall progress and making recommendations in accordance with the Council’s scheme of delegation for executive functions.

To ensure that the funding is fully allocated, Officers had been developing a bidding and award process for allocating the 2025/26 funding.  It was suggested that only two intervention themes were opened up to a formal bidding process and these were:

Parish and Community Fund - £179k

Decarbonisation Projects - £135k

Communications around expressions of interest in respect of these two interventions would be launched week commencing 2 June 2025 and all Councillor would be emailed with details.  The Community Engagement Manager who manages the Community Fund would be helping with the assessments and eligibility of the expressions of interest and will be helping with the completion of the final application forms as required.

A number of other community-based projects that the Council was aware of would be supported and were shown in the next agenda item for Members consideration.

Members discussed the overview with questions being asked about the timescales involved.  It was stated that all expressions of interest had to be in by 1 August 2025 when they would be evaluated and applications requested to be completed within a two week period.

Each expression would be evaluated within a matrix and weighted against the criteria so that it was clear where areas were oversubscribed, which expression had the best outcome and benefits.  Concern was expressed by some Members who felt that applications for funding appeared to be Grantham centric.  It was stated that there were potential projects under other themes such as Sports and Community Facilities and the Rural funding could not be spent in Grantham but within the District.   Further discussion was focused on ensuring that funding was spread across the District as with previous years, and that applications were better assessed, to ensure that issues such as applications requiring planning permission were highlighted early.  Officers were mindful of the lessons learnt in the previous years in respect of the applications for funding received and would ensure that schemes would be viable going forward.

The report was proposed, seconded and accepted by the Board.