Technical Notes 2024, Issue 163 - UK Shared Prosperity Fund 

1. The purpose of this Technical Note is to provide Elected Members with an update on the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF)

2. The primary goal of UKSPF is to boost productivity, pay, jobs and living standards and it focuses on three core investment themes: ‘Communities and Place’; ‘Local Business Support’; and ‘People and Skills’.  The ‘Multiply’ element is specifically to support improvement in adult numeracy  

3. As outlined in previous Council papers, each local authority in the UK has been allocated a set amount of UKSPF funding.  The Council’s total funding allocation is £3,534,942 for three years (spanning financial years 2022/23, 2023/24, and 2024/25).  The majority of the funding is revenue.  This allocation is made up of ‘Core SPF’ (£2,924,491) and ‘Multiply’ funding (£610,451).  ‘Core SPF’ funding can be utilised across the three SPF themes (and local authorities can determine how to split this allocation), and ‘Multiply’ is ring fenced 

4. The funding is for three years, ending 31st March 2025.  The actual start of the fund was delayed, which meant in practice local authorities will have had less than three years to deliver.  The Glasgow City Region (GCR) is acting as the ‘lead authority’.  The GCR interfaces with the UK Government (UKG) in relation to the administration of the UKSPF across the 8 local authorities within the region.  GCR coordinated a Regional Investment Plan and agreed this with the UKG.  The GCR are providing a coordinating role, liaising with the UK and reporting the collective expenditure, and outputs from each of the eight-member local authorities 

5. A pass-down agreement between GCR and each of the eight local authorities has been put in place as the mechanism to transfer the UKG allocation.  Accompanying this is a GCR Monitoring & Assurance Framework which sets out GCR controls for the management and governance which are the minimum monitoring requirements for the fund.  Internal operational procedure relating to programme assurance and monitoring will take cognisance of the regional framework 

6. Updates on the fund and the proposed programme of projects were provided to Elected Members in June 2023 (ref: PNCA/019/23/DG) and in June 2022 (ref: PNCA-045-22-DG).  The Place & Business Development Service are coordinating the programme, and various Services across the Council have funding and are progressing projects.  Some projects are now complete and others are ongoing.  The Projects are listed in Appendix 1 below, which shows updated allocations per UKSPF theme     

7. As per Report Ref: PNCA068/22/DG authority was delegated to the Chief Finance Officer, Executive Officer Land Planning & Development, Executive Officer Place & Community Planning, and Chief Education Officer to provide governance and oversight to the management and delivery of the programme of UKSPF projects.  This includes, where required, approval of progress reporting and any proposed changes to proposed activity into the GCR 

8. As per Report Ref: PNCA019/23/DG authority was delegated to these Officers to approve and manage non-material changes to the programme of projects, including funding re-allocations across UKSPF themes and the introduction of new projects.  The programme is fully committed and expected to fully spend.  Through the arrangements described above (in 7. and 8.), the programme will be governed and readjusted to utilise funding where required  

9. In keeping with the UKG guidance, non-material change can be defined as changes to the programme which constitutes less than 20% change to outputs.  The programme of projects will deliver a range of outputs, and these have been identified using the relevant UKSPF guidance.  Moving less than 30% of core SPF funding between the three UKSPF Themes will also be considered non-material  

10. To date just over 30% of the original allocations have been re-allocated to the Community & Place theme.  This has been undertaken due to changes in projects, for example that have been able to source other external funding, require less funding or may not be able to deliver on original project plans and therefore deferred or stopped.  Projects that can scale up or new projects (in this case within the Community & Place theme) have been allocated additional budget.  The Community Grants project for example is one project that utilised additional funding (re-allocated within the UKSPF programme) 

11. The GCR is coordinating quarterly and six-monthly monitoring and reporting on the progress of the delivery of the Investment Plan to then provide to the UKG.  The GCR provides an update on the progress of activity and expenditure to take cognisance of changes which are required on projects across the 8 local authorities.  These updates are also reported at the GCR Chief Executives Group and Cabinet. 

12. The UKSPF programme is due to end in March 2025.  GCR have requested an update from UKG on the continuation of SPF to allow sufficient time for planning and to enable managing authorities to effectively utilise any further funding or extension to the programme effectively.  Discussions around the future of UKSPF are ongoing.  In lieu of confirmation regarding the future of UKSPF, all projects are working towards 31st of March 2025 as the closure of the fund

Next steps

13. Ongoing quarterly update reporting to the GCR and UKG

14. Ongoing delivery of projects using the SPF funding 

15. Continued dialogue via the GCR with UKG officials in relation to any follow-on UKSPF programme after 31st March 2025.