Approval of bids from Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council to Round 2 of Levelling Up Fund
To consider proposals to establish an Assurance Panel for the purposes of assuring Levelling Up Fund bid proposals. (Exempt information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information)).
Additional documents:
Decision:
To consider proposals to establish an Assurance Panel for the purposes of assuring Levelling Up Fund bid proposals.
Minutes:
Approval was sought for the four priority bids for submission into Round 2 of the Levelling Up Fund.
Authorisation was also sought to establish an Assurance Panel for the purposes of assuring Levelling Up Fund bid proposals.
The Chair of the Children’s Services and Education Scrutiny Board stated that members of the Board were briefed on the proposals for the Youth Facility in West Bromwich and welcomed the proposals. The Chair highlighted that all Councillors were not engaged in the consultation process and scrutiny was denied an opportunity to discuss Sandwell’s youth offer. It was asked whether further consultation in relation to youth services would involve members in future.
In response, the Cabinet Member of Regeneration and Growth stated that the timescales for officers for the business cases were extremely tight. Various projects were brought to the Economy Skills Transport and Environment Scrutiny Board. Furthermore, prior to submission, project information was provided at a town level. Despite this, officers were working to improve the consultation process.
The Chair of the Safer Neighbourhoods and Active Communities Scrutiny Board questioned why consultation took place after projects were formed and whether projects would reflect residents’ views. In response, it was reported that that officers had attended all town meetings. Timescales meant that officers had four months to put together the priorities and business cases. Further to this, another challenge was reconciling MP’s views with Councillor’s views to agree on the priority. While there would be a significant amount of opportunity to engage with Councillors in shaping the details of the proposals, it was accepted that the consultation process could be improved in the future. The process set by Government entailed MP’s signing off the bids which made it difficult for officers to engage in a consultation process. Going forward, Sandwell needed to be ahead of timescales for the next round of bids to ensure the full process could be conducted.
Reasons for recommendations
The Levelling Up Fund Guidance stated that bid submissions were to becompliant with the HM Treasury Green Book (2020), which entailed projects having a Full Business Case (FBC) which address five cases; Strategic, Economic, Commercial, Financial and Management.
Under the proposed LUF Assurance Panel model, the Strategic Investment Unit would undertake a review of the financial case of each bid, on the basis that the Full Business Cases had been prepared by a specialist consultant. That specialist consultant would be required to present the Full Businesses Cases to the Assurance Panel for consideration.
Should the panel accept the proposal, they would then have delegated authority from Cabinet to submit those bid proposals.
Alternative options considered
The alternative option would be to keep the existing assurance arrangements contained within the Financial Regulations, but this would create a risk that the submission deadline of noon 6 July 2022 would not be achieved. The LUF investments were critical to addressing a range of
issues and delivering real improvements in the Borough.
Agreed:-
(1) that approval be given to the following four priority ... view the full minutes text for item 141