Agenda item

F Kumi-Ampofo gave a presentation  on the South Yorkshire Renewal Fund which covered:

• What was the South Yorkshire Renewal Fund (SYRF) and why it was needed.
• A new way of working – principles and what would be different.
• The prize on offer and the current position.
• The key political drivers guiding the approach and what was already in place.
• The timeline – what was needed to be achieved by April 2022 and the process to get there, plus next steps.

The Chair thanked F Kumi-Ampofo for the presentation and asked for questions from Members.

Cllr Jones expressed concern that he could see the income to support investment but could not see what the expenditure would be to secure the investments, in other words how much would borrowing to support investment cost.

The Chair questioned what safeguards were in place to prevent the build-up of large amounts of debt.

F Kumi-Ampofo explained that a lot more detail around MCA responsibilities, safeguards and governance arrangements would be provided in due course.  It was the beginning of the process to agreeing a Borrowing Cap with Treasury and then the agreement would need Parliamentary approval.

The Chair commented that this would have to be returned to over time when more information was available to receive further assurance.

D Smith commented that as negotiations moved forward with HM Treasury more details and the terms of any borrowing would be provided to the Committee.

Cllr Ennis commented that of the four political drivers that had been identified it appeared that ‘equity’ would be the most difficult to achieve and questioned how this could be achieved across the four local authorities who each had their own differing agendas.

F Kumi-Ampofo agreed that this would be challenging and work would be needed to move mind-sets from calculating what would be a ‘fair share’ to focus on priorities and outcomes for each area whilst ensuring the MCA was investing in projects that were aligned to the MCA’s objectives and outcomes.

Cllr Hurst questioned the investment principles in particular sustained investment and how social impact could be measured.

It was agreed there was no easy answer to this.  The Finance Director was working on a paper to look at the position the MCA should consider taking on a case to case basis when investment opportunities arose.  For example in some cases the MCA could act as the funder and in others the financier.

Details were still being worked through and would be provided in due course – this would include a ‘toolbox’ of financial options.

The Chair questioned how the effectiveness of investments would be measured.

F Kumi-Ampofo explained that the MCA had approved a Monitoring and Evaluation Framework.  Gainshare came with conditions including evaluation and review points where the MCA had to work with Government to evaluate impacts.

Work was ongoing to develop a ‘Data and Intelligence Hub’ which would be a real life platform which would use a series of measures and indicators to assess performance an effectiveness.

In answer to a question from the Chair, D Smith confirmed that the strategy allowed for long-term investment and had moved away from funds having to be spent within a certain time limit.

The Chair thanked F Kumi-Ampofo for the presentation.