Blackpool Council Community Renewal Fund Programme

Blackpool was identified as one of the top 100 priority places under the Community Renewal Fund (CRF), based on an index of economic resilience defined by the government. Blackpool Council received a total of 27 bids and was successful in securing funding for four CRF projects out of a total 12 shortlisted. The projects ranged in value from £13,607 to £452,700. They included a feasibility study examining the role of digital museums and archives in culture-led regeneration, an employment and skills programmed called ‘Ready for Work’, a pilot for place-based innovation catalysts, and Blackpool Youth Hub.

One of the main motivations for engaging in the CRF process was to explore and learn from the process to support any future role in the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) due to launch in 2022. These projects were considered essential as pilots to explore new ways of delivering outcomes and give familiarity with the application process.

Blackpool Council took on the lead authority role to promote, assess and review the bids as well as preparing their own applications to bid into the fund. To remove any conflicts of interest, the CRF teams within the council were separated to ensure a fair and equitable process and an independent consultant were used extensively to support the scheme evaluation and scoring activity.

Despite the restrictive timeframe, the council was surprised by the large number and wide variety of applications received. Once the CRF fund was launched by government, they advertised it on their website to encourage any local organisations to develop bids across the four theme areas of investment in skills, investment for local business, investment in communities and place, and supporting people into employment. There were council owned bids as well as bids from the private sector, academia, and a breadth of projects from the voluntary and community sector (VCS) which is attributed to their strong relationships with that sector locally. Once submissions were received, they took a robust approach to the appraisal of the received bids and used an independent consultant  to undertake an initial evaluation which was key to ensuring a fair and equitable process. Staff on the assessment side of the process had relevant experience of evaluation processes and a panel was formed to agree the shortlist.

These proposals were then presented to a subgroup of the Towns Deal Board as well as the Council Corporate Leadership team and Executives to ensure their approach was as thorough as possible. The council utilised the good relationship with the Town Deal Board to run the most robust bidding process possible.

Lessons learned from the process

Through following the guidance that they received, the idea to look at other available pots of funding developed organically during the application process and some projects, such as the Youth Hub, already had some funding allocated. This added value to the projects and the process.

Overall, a substantial number of the projects showed promise of innovation, but a number of them lacked a depth of detail to reach the shortlist. In these cases, often it was due to the project outputs and outcomes that were seemingly very ambitious within the short timescales offered.

Blackpool Council is keen to capture the full outcomes and impact of the projects which have reached a delivery stage as the centralisation of the bidding process restricted the level of flexibility.

The changes in the guidance after the bids were submitted has also necessitated a review of project delivery. One of the changes in the guidance has proved to be business critical – when the Youth Hub bid was submitted, the guidance document did not include an employment outcome or definition. As the project is employment and training focused, Blackpool submitted outcomes for employment and training.  The guidance was then updated to include an employment outcome but the definition states that to ‘claim’ these, customers must have been unemployed for over 18 months. This is unhelpful for the project as they are trying to support young people as soon as they become unemployed, not once they have reached long-term unemployment. The council was fortunate in that in their grant offer letter the department had moved all of their outcomes into employment and training, but this was not the case for the Ready for Work programme and outcomes have had to be renegotiated to accommodate this change. They are hoping that the outcomes are modified for any future commissioning under the UKSPF as this would constrain most employment support contracts.

Despite the council making government criteria for the fund and local Blackpool priorities clear to bidders, a number of projects were still unable to meet the quality needed to go forward. This could simply have been due to lack of internal experience, capacity with bidding and the timescales of delivery.

Some of the projects may have been able to deliver good impact on the ground but their fit with fund size and criteria meant that they did not make the final list of successful projects.

It was felt more clarity was needed from government on the type of projects likely to get granted funding. For example, projects that would support the development of feasibility type studies appeared to be supported in the guidance, but there appeared to be none or very few of these types of schemes actually approved. This shows a weakness of a centralised bidding system

Even with strong pre-existing relationships with local organisations, the short notice and timescales permitted left some bidders frustrated. The council does however hope that some proposals may be able to be worked up into pipeline UKSPF bids.

 Learning from the process, Blackpool Council would perhaps consider prioritising 2 or 3 of the 4 key themes, instead of addressing the whole fund portfolio. They would also encourage longer timescales to encourage bidders to consider more collaboration and to have the opportunity to innovate further, develop local partnerships for joint bids, and be more specific on the type of projects that would meet local priorities. Further time may have also allowed individual panels for each of the four themes to ensure they were meeting local priorities within these themes, but this would have made the evaluation task more difficult.

Overall, with more time the council could have encouraged more cooperation. For example, it would have been beneficial to join up OA funded support which targets young people at risk of NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) with the Youth Hub in a combined bid, working with voluntary organisation Right2Work. The application paperwork did not lend itself to supporting joined up projects.

Blackpool Council faced some delays in commencing their portfolio of projects due to pressures on their legal team. These pressures were enhanced by Blackpool being successful with a £39.5m Town Deal programme which includes seven Town Deal projects, each requiring funding agreements, in addition to their portfolio of Community Renewal Fund projects. This shows the complexity of having a number of different funding streams for a single place.

The council run project, the Youth Hub, went live mid-January. With a relatively complicated set of governance arrangements to ensure robust assurance, the council has a service-level agreement (SLA) between the council delivery and monitoring team and also funding agreements for the partners sub-contracting. One aspect of the Youth Hub which has provided a challenge is the property services bid element as procurement and supply issues are difficult. For a six-month project, the set-up phase has been complicated, but the council has found creative solutions to each hurdle. In terms of engagement, they have participants participating with the Youth Hub and have DWP and Youth Work coaches working together.

Indicative of the impact that delays can have, when they submitted their bid, youth unemployment figures were double the current numbers. They had around 2,000 18-24-young people claiming Universal Credits in comparison to 1,000 now. COVID-19 recovery has been going better than expected resulting in a positive economic change meaning that their aim to support 300 young people is now quite a large expectation due to a smaller pool of young people. The project initially expected referrals to come from DWP but COVID-19 has meant less interaction between claimants and the department, so the team has had to look at other referral opportunities. Other projects in the portfolio have not required any variations to date.

Lessons learned from the process

In terms of future opportunities, particularly in the form of UKSPF, Blackpool Council states that the Town Deal board will likely lead on the process, and they are hopeful that they will receive a good amount of funding, if UKSPF is to be based on local need. Blackpool included 12 projects in their initial CRF bid and are aspiring to bring forward some that did not receive CRF funding from government. Lancashire’s Local Enterprise Partnership has also mapped out skills and employment funds that will end before UKSPF comes into place to help bridge the gap in funding these priority areas. 

One lesson learned from the delivery process is that CRF has only been able to fund staffing and small consumable costs, not rent and rates. This has meant that Blackpool has been left with a funding gap of £60,000 on one project which can’t be recouped through the fund.

Blackpool has been selected as a new priority area under the ‘Pathfinders Programme’ which looks to Blackpool to demonstrate changes. By allowing flexibilities through this programme, Blackpool may have the opportunity to address strategic and operational challenges through one process. It may also be an opportunity to achieve policy coordination and better overall place outcomes. 

• The focus going forward is on the successful delivery of the funded projects. At the time of interview, Blackpool Council recommended that the government start to drip feed information about the UKSPF as soon as possible to provide councils time to think about what to do next and create innovative approaches that will make the most impact locally. For future funds having all of the required information at the earliest possible moment would enable councils to be as prepared as possible and work more closely with delivery partners.
• Blackpool Council felt that a detailed FAQ published on the government website would have provided some consistency across local authorities in their bidding processes, delivery, and the monitoring of projects. Additionally, it would have been beneficial to establish a forum, allowing local authorities to share questions, innovations and offer reassurance to council CRF teams.
• Blackpool Council also highlighted the fact that the deadline for Levelling Up fund bids was the same as for CRF. This put huge pressure on the council and although there was no obligation to apply for both funds, they wanted to seize the opportunity to support local regeneration.   Blackpool Council would like to have flexibility in spending against the myriad of funds in order to capitalise on a wider set of opportunities and outcomes.
• Blackpool Council would like to have flexibility in spending against the myriad of funds in order to capitalise on a wider set of opportunities and outcomes.