Agenda item

The Board considered a report which set out how the City Region intended to work with scheme sponsors to deliver the Transforming Cities Fund programme by March 2023.

The Board were informed that the Strategic Outline Business Case (SOBC) had been submitted to the DfT on 27^th November 2019; a decision was expected before March 2020.

The report looked at two programme level risks that had been identified that could be constraints on the ability to deliver the programme on time and budget.  The risks related to the availability of resources to deliver the programme (both internal and external) and funding scheme development costs.  The report also considered project leads and how projects would be approved.

The final SCR TCF SOBC included three funding scenarios for capital programmes that need to be delivered over the four years to March 2023.  The final values were:

·         Low - £185 million

·         Medium - £200 million

·         High - £229 million

The capital programme in the SOBC was made up of specific schemes and an estimate of funding required to develop them.  The development of a capital scheme business case was a three-stage process that could involve significant costs.

SCR partners were seeking an improved ability to ‘cash flow’ project development costs through SCR allowing partners to recoup their expenditure earlier that they can at present.

In order to support delivery partners straight away, it was recommended that funding should be released earlier than at present – with 2% of the total scheme cost being used as a rate to facilitate the development of the OBC.  Following approval of the OBC it was proposed that additional funding should be released to assist with final scheme development of the full Business Case.

Secondly the report proposes that the OBC would be the primary appraisal and decision making point, the OBC would then be approved by the MCA.  The primary purpose of an FBC should be to confirm the schemes costs and delivery approach and the report proposes that the FBC should be approved by a Statutory Officer within the Executive Team, in consultation with the Chair of the Transport Board.

D Whitley confirmed that the liability for repaying revenue expenditure against capital projects that did not come to fruition would rest with the scheme developer, in this case the Local Authority or PTE.

S Edwards asked whether partners were considering pooling resources to avoid competing for scarce resources.

RESOLVED – That the Board:

      i.        Note the scale of the investment and timescales associated with the Transforming Cities Fund.

    ii.        Note the ongoing work highlighted in section 2 of the report that would enable SCR to offer appropriate leadership and support to partners to help ensure successful scheme delivery.

   iii.        Recommend to the MCA a new approach to help ensure earlier release of scheme development funds (as set out in section 2.14 of the report), noting that this included changes to the current levels of delegated responsibility.

   iv.        Recommend to the MCA a revised approach to approving different stages of business case development, noting that this included changes to delegated responsibility as set out in sections 2.15 and 2.16 of the report.