Overview of the Community Renewal Forum – 2nd August 2021
CEDOS hosted a further Community Renewal Fund (CRF) Forum on the 2nd August 2021. Below are some of the key headlines from the discussion.
- Authorities had maintained ongoing contact with all their shortlisting applicants since the submission to Government. Some had held online forums with all shortlisted applicants and others had held one-to-one meetings.
- Authorities were using a range of approaches to inform their contracting – including drawing from experience as Accountable Bodies for LEP programmes including Growing Places/Regional Growth fund, adapting schemes such as LEADER and using recent MHCLG programme processes such as the Getting Building Fund.
- Working early with finance and legal services had been crucial in transitioning from an application and appraisal footing to a contracting process.
- Some Authorities had established or were developing Programme Boards to oversee the governance of the programme.
- Most Authorities with Priority Areas had begun the process of putting in place resources to manage the CRF monitoring and claims processes and to work with successful projects. Few had the capacity to manage this with existing resources (although some were exploring drawing on staff from a range of Departments). This process was taking place through a range of approaches including: advertising for additional posts, exploring the use of agency staff, moving staff through internal secondments to work on CRF and making plans to backfill these posts.
- Some Authorities were exploring issuing Letters of Intent to successful applicants to speed up timescales after notification.
- Further delays would have a significant effect on the deliverability of projects – no Authorities at this stage were expecting an extension to be allowed to projects.