Following the recent announcement of the £22.8m allocation of the Towns Fund to Burton upon Trent, the Town Deal Board has now received Heads of Terms for the funding from Government.
The Heads of Terms confirm details such as the allocation of the funding, projects that can be delivered, conditions of the funding, and whether any of the projects can be fast tracked. The Town Deal Board has until the 24th March to confirm its acceptance of the offer.
Once the Heads of Terms have been agreed, the Board will have two months to confirm the projects to be taken forward through business case development, how much of the funding is expected to be allocated to each project, and how any conditions of the fund will be addressed.
During 2021/22, each project sponsor will develop a business case for their project and this will be subjected to assessment locally, through an assurance framework agreed with Government. Speaking of the business case process, the Chair of the Town Deal Board, Ben Robinson MBE, said that:
“We look forward to the next 12 months with real excitement and will be informing each project sponsor the details of the positive and negative comments that we have received as part of the stakeholder and public consultation in 2020. The sponsors will be required to address these comments and respond appropriately as part of their business case”.
The business case process must comply with The Green Book(i) and so the rationale for the proposals will be assessed via the strategic case for the project, the value will be assessed through the economic case, and the deliverability will be assessed though the commercial, financial, and management cases. This will include consideration of how stakeholders and the public have been, and will be, engaged regarding the project. The Chair of the Town Deal Board went on to say:
“Project sponsors will be expected to undertake further public engagement regarding the development of their proposals. This is particularly important as we are aware that certain proposals, such as the Library relocation project, are quite divisive, with slightly more people supporting the proposal compared to the number against. Whilst it may not be possible for project sponsors to attain support from every member of the public, we do expect that the publics concerns will be taken into account”.
Once all business cases have been developed and assessed, the Town Deal Board must submit a summary document to Government that outlines the details of the business cases such as any committed outputs, outcomes, and plans, before any funding can be released.
[i] The Green Book is guidance issued by HM Treasury on how to appraise policies, programmes and projects. (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-green-book-appraisal-and-evaluation-in-central-governent/the-green-book-2020)