Agenda item

Jo Walker, Assistant Director of Growth at the City of Lincoln Council, presented a report which set out the proposed Assurance Framework and governance model that would be used to determine how the Lincoln Town Fund Programme would be managed and governed, taking account of the Heads of Terms agreement with the Government.

The report provided further detail to support the arrangements set out within Lincoln’s Investment Plan. The framework and governance had been drafted with reference to the Local Growth Assurance Framework developed by the Greater Lincolnshire Local Enterprise Partnership for the management of its programmes and the existing policies and protocols which were in place for the City of Lincoln Council, as accountable body for the Town Fund Programme.

The document outlined specific information in relation to governance, transparency, confirmation of the accountable body, scope and undertaking of due diligence, decision-making, contracting and claims, monitoring and grant claims, independent evaluation, claw-back and variation orders.

The report also set out proposed amendments to the terms of reference for the Town Deal Board to allow for the creation of a new Investment Sub-Committee which would have responsibility for approving final business cases, mirroring the principles followed by the Greater Lincolnshire Local Enterprise Partnership. To assist in the decision-making, each business case would be subject to an independent due diligence check in the same way as for the Local Enterprise Partnership funding projects to ensure transparent and robust decision-making.

It was reported that having this framework in place would enable the determination of projects to be fast-tracked in order that delivery could commence as soon as possible, once the Board had made its final selection of projects to proceed to business case stage.

Mary Stuart, Chair of the Lincoln Town Deal Board, agreed with the principle of mirroring a tried and tested approach which a number of partners on the Board were familiar with. She emphasised that those members of the Board leading or closely affiliated with specific projects would not be involved in investment decisions related to those particular projects.

Gary Headland, representing Lincoln College, confirmed that it was a very sound process with discipline and rigour which worked very well for the Greater Lincolnshire Local Enterprise Partnership. It was noted that other Town Deal Boards had were also adopting a similar mechanism for this purpose.

Karl McCartney, Member of Parliament for Lincoln, asked, in terms of the independent nature of the mechanism reflected in the framework, whether this would be facilitated locally, who took the decision to select the appropriate independent mechanism, what the cost implications were and whether there were time implications to consider too given that the speed of delivery would be very important. It was proposed that the independent analysis would be undertaken by a third party consultancy firm with a very quick turnaround, in keeping with the swift processes and due diligence undertaken through the Local Enterprise Partnership. The independent consultancy would be appointed by the City Council as accountable body using its usual procurement policies and procedures involving invitations to multiple companies to bid for the contract, so it could not guarantee that the firm would be based in the city.

Caroline Killeavey, representing the YMCA, requested further visual detail be included within the documentation to show more clearly how the Town Deal Board impacted the scheme, particularly in respect of decision-making and accountability.

It was RESOLVED that the proposed Assurance Framework, governance arrangements and amendments to the Lincoln Town Deal Board’s Terms of Reference be supported.