UK Community Renewal Fund: explanatory note on the assessment and decision-making process
This sets out the decision-making process for selecting successful bids to the UK Community Renewal Fund (UKCRF).
The purpose of this document is to set out the decision-making process for selecting successful bids to the UK Community Renewal Fund (UKCRF). The assessment, shortlisting and decision-making process was set out in the UKCRF Prospectus and the UKCRF Assessment Criteria.The process reflects the different approaches taken in Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
UK Community Renewal Fund bids received
The UKCRF bidding round was open from 3 March 2021 to 18 June 2021. The role of the lead authority in Great Britain was to invite bids from a range of project applicants, and then to appraise and prioritise projects. Places could ask for up to a maximum of £3 million. Following the appraisal and prioritisation exercise lead authorities submitted a shortlist to UK government. UK government then selected projects based on the published assessment criteria.
In Great Britain submissions were received from 110 lead authorities totalling 993 bids; 83 bids were submitted from organisations in Northern Ireland. In total 1,073 bids were received.
UK Community Renewal Fund assessment and shortlisting
The UKCRF application form submitted by project applicants and the bid summaries provided by lead authorities were assessed against the criteria set out in the Prospectus and the Assessment Criteria document published on gov.uk.
Bids were assessed against initial gateway criteria; 24 bids failed to meet the gateway criteria and were rejected. This included 2 non-public sector bidders from Northern Ireland who did not meet the required financial due diligence assessment.
Bids predominately delivering activity under the “supporting people into employment” investment priority were assessed by officials from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), all other bids were assessed by officials from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC). Moderation meetings were used to ensure consistency across assessors.
As part of the assessment process comments were provided by officials in the Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland Offices on bids relevant to those nations. DWP provided comments on bids that were assessed by DLUHC, specifically on employment support activity. The Department for Education provided comments on investment in skills. The Devolved Administrations were also given an opportunity to comment on bids in their respective nation.
A moderation panel, as the final stage of the assessment process, sampled a number of assessments to ensure assessment scores were following the scoring framework, to strategically reflect on wider trends and patterns emerging through assessments which will influence formulation of advice to Ministers as well as consideration of the potential equalities impact (or additional considerations for Northern Ireland).
Eligible bids relating to projects in Great Britain were required to meet a minimum score to be shortlisted against the assessment criteria. Depending upon whether the project predominantly delivered in one or more of the 100 priority places identified for UKCRF, appointable projects were allocated to bands depending upon their score:
- Band A: projects scoring 80% or more against the published criteria and predominantly delivered in priority places
- Band B: projects scoring 80% or more against the published criteria and predominantly delivered in non-priority places
- Band C: projects scoring 50% or more against the published criteria and predominantly delivered in priority places
Within these bands projects were ranked by overall score. This ranking provided a long list of fundable bids worth £316.8 million:
- 140 projects worth £80.4 million were allocated to band A.
- 93 projects worth £39.6 million were allocated to band B.
- 433 projects worth £196.8 million were allocated to band C.
In Northern Ireland eligible bids were assessed and then ranked by score. No bands were necessary as the competition in Northern Ireland was separate to that in Great Britain. A single Northern Ireland list of all the bids submitted and which passed due diligence was created and ordered by score.
The UKCRF has a total of £203.5 million available to support UK project activity and lead authority management costs. The published UKCRF assessment criteria stated that following the ranking of projects ministers could exercise discretion to allocate funding to ensure:
a) a reasonable thematic split of approved projects (e.g. skills, local business, communities and place, employment support)
b) a balanced spread of approved projects across Great Britain
c) the balance of approved projects between those focused on priority and non-priority places gives appropriate regard to priority places
In respect of point b) minsters wished to allocate funding on the basis of:
- England 62%
- Scotland 9%
- Wales 23%
- Northern Ireland 6%
Ministers did not give any direction in respect of points a and c.
To draw up a shortlist of bids for approval:
- the allocations determined by ministers for each nation were taken as a budget for each nation
- the long-list of fundable bids was split into a long-list for each nation
- within Great Britain bids in each nation were ranked in order of bands A, B and C, within these bands bids were ranked by score
- in each nation all bids allocated to bands A and B were included in a national shortlist along with those bids in band C that were affordable within the national budget – projects with the same score were ranked in order of their position in the list of priority places. To achieve the allocation in Wales projects from non-priority areas that scored less than 80% but more than 50% were shortlisted
Projects that failed to meet the 50% minimum criteria were not shortlisted.
In Northern Ireland bids were ranked by score. A small number of projects scored the same though the funding envelope did not allow all to be funded. As per the published prospectus ministers applied discretion to determine which of those projects received funding; this was based on achieving a balanced spread of projects across Northern Ireland.
These national shortlists were merged to form an overall UK shortlist for ministerial approval.
Ministerial decision making
As outlined in the prospectus the final funding decision sat with the Secretary of State for the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. He would make his decision after considering any comments from ministerial colleagues at the Department for Work and Pensions and the Northern Ireland Office. Secretaries of State from both departments confirmed they were content with the draft shortlist.
Ministers are required to recuse themselves from the decision-making process if a bid from their constituency features on the shortlist or if they had any other personal or pecuniary interests. The Secretary of State was provided with a shortlist of projects and there were no projects within the Secretary of State’s constituency contained within the shortlist.
In Northern Ireland (as set out in the previous section) where a selection was necessary on the basis of individual bids. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland offered advice on these, but had no constituency, or other personal or pecuniary interests when offering this advice.
This resulted in the final decision being taken by Secretary of State for DLUHC to fund a total of 477 bids (totalling £203.1 million):
| Nation | Eligible Bids Assessed | Bids Selected | Total Value of Bids Selected | % of Overall Funding |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| England | 612 | 225 | £125.76m | 62% |
| Scotland | 176 | 56 | £18.32m | 9% |
| Wales | 185 | 165 | £46.85m | 23% |
| Northern Ireland | 73 | 31 | £12.36m | 6% |
Considerations of the equalities impacts of ministerial decisions
Ministers received detailed equalities analysis for the areas benefiting from the bids they had provisionally selected for funding compared with the areas that would have benefited from bids that were not selected. Once ministers had considered the impacts of their provisional decisions on equalities, in light of the requirements of section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 and, in the case of Northern Ireland, the additional requirements of section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998, they were content to confirm their decisions.
Next steps
The UKCRF announcement of successful and unsuccessful projects, letters issued to lead authorities in Great Britain and direct to project applicants in Northern Ireland. Grant funding agreements will then be issued to all successful lead authorities in Great Britain and project applicants in Northern Ireland.