Plan needed for how Cornwall will spend £132m of replacement EU funding
The council has a matter of weeks to decide and submit it to the government
Cornwall Council will have just weeks to draw up a plan for how Cornwall’s £132million replacement EU funding should be spent.
A report going to councillors next week states that an investment plan for the funding will have to be submitted to the Government by July.
The council’s economic growth and development overview and scrutiny committee will hold an extraordinary meeting on Monday (May23) to discuss the proposals for drawing up a Local Investment Plan for the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (SPF).
It was announced earlier this year that Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly would get £132m over three years from the SPF, which had previously been identified as the mechanism for replacing funding which had previously been provided by the EU before Brexit.
There was disappointment from some in Cornwall about the level of funding after Cornwall Council had submitted a bid for around £100m a year which it said was “crucial” to fill the gap left by lost EU funding.
However Cornwall’s Conservative MPs and councillors have welcomed the funding and highlighted that it is not the only source of funding for the Duchy. Although critics have pointed out that Cornwall was one of just a handful of areas which were eligible for high level EU funding which was awarded in recognition of Cornwall being one of the poorest regions in the EU.
The report going to the overview and scrutiny committee next week sets out how the £132m awarded to Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly is broken down. It explains that £2.5m of the funding is ringfenced for Multiply – an adult numeracy programme – leaving £129.5m for the SPF.
The three-year funding programme works out with £15.7m available for 2022/23; £31.4m in 2023/24 and then £82.4m in 2024/25.
In the new report the council states: “Based on previous funding allocations from EU programmes, it had been calculated that a future Shared Prosperity Fund programme should be £700m over a seven-year period.”
It then goes on to explain that this was based on the average yearly amount of EU funding that Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly had received during 2014 to 2020 along with the match funding which was provided by the Government.
The report goes on to highlight that Cornwall’s SPF allocation was the largest outside the Greater London Authority and that at £230 per person over the three years is higher than other areas such as Devon which will get £17 per person.
Cornwall Council will take responsibility for the delivery of the fund but the report to councillors states that the council will have to “set up at speed” a programme management office so that it can deliver the funding from October.
And, in order to be able to draw down the funding, there will have to be a Local Investment Plan submitted between June 30 and August 1. Council officers have recommended that this is submitted “as early as possible”.
The council has also indicated that a joint committee should be set up between Cornwall Council and the Council of the Isles of Scilly to make decisions about delivery of SPF projects.
The extraordinary meeting of the economic growth and development overview and scrutiny committee is due to take place on Monday (May23) at 10am at New County Hall in Truro.