Fifth Report - Local economic growth

Select Committee

Public Accounts Committee HC 252 8 June 2022

Report Status Government responded

Conclusions & Recommendations 27 items (12 recs)

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Government Response (AI assessment · 27 of 27 classified)

Accepted 4

Accepted in Part 2

Acknowledged 15

Not Addressed 4

Rejected 2

Government response

Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Fifth report from Session 2022-23 · published 2 Sep 2022

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Recommendations & Conclusions

2 results

5 Recommendation Accepted in Part

It is unclear how the Department is reconciling tensions between devolved responsibilities and administering local...

Recommendation

It is unclear how the Department is reconciling tensions between devolved responsibilities and administering local growth funding on a UK-wide basis. Economic development is a devolved power but the Department is administering the Levelling Up and UK Shared Prosperity funds … Read more

Government Response Summary

The department agrees, but disagrees with the conclusion. For LUF, at least 9% of the total allocation will be set aside for Scotland, 5% for Wales, and 3% for Northern Ireland, subject to a suitable number of high-quality bids coming forward. Officials established an Interministerial Group to discuss issues of mutual interest, and the inaugural meeting of the Interministerial Standing Committee was held.

HM Treasury

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15 Recommendation Accepted in Part

We questioned the Department on the nature and timing of the role for Ministers in...

Recommendation

We questioned the Department on the nature and timing of the role for Ministers in making final decisions for the Levelling Up Fund.40 The NAO’s report explains that following an initial pass/fail gateway, officials scored and ranked bids against published … Read more We questioned the Department on the nature and timing of the role for Ministers in making final decisions for the Levelling Up Fund.40 The NAO’s report explains that following an initial pass/fail gateway, officials scored and ranked bids against published criteria and then passed a shortlist of the highest scoring bids to Ministers. Ministers then made final decisions, taking into account the scores as assessed by officials though the process allowed them some discretion in how bids met a pre-defined list of ‘other considerations’.41 The Department explained that Ministers made decisions about how much money to allocate; what score threshold to apply and what the balance of investment across the three themes of the Levelling Up Fund would be.42 We acknowledged that some decisions would always be taken subjectively by Ministers but wanted to understand how much discretion they had.43 We wanted to understand if Ministers had decided on the principles for awarding funding only after they knew who, from the 170 shortlisted bidders, would win and who would not as a result of those principles.44 HM Treasury told us after the evidence session that Ministers had seen a high level summary of all eligible bids prior to shortlisting but that they made decisions from a shortlist that had been locked down. The Department told us that none of the scores changed as a consequence of ministerial decision-making. It pointed us to the explanatory note which, it said, laid out the detail of how Ministers made their decisions.45 The explanatory note implies a single discussion in which Ministers discussed the shortlist and determined principles for award.46 However, the Department did not publish sufficient information for us to determine, as we would expect in the interests of openness and transparency, how much discretion Ministers had. For example, it did not publish lists of shortlisted or unsuccessful bidders, neither did it publish any information on how the Department had scored Show less

Government Response Summary

The government defends its robust decision-making process and ministerial discretion for the Levelling Up Fund. However, it commits to providing information on the balance of successful and unsuccessful bids by theme and geography to enhance transparency regarding funding decisions, partially addressing the request for more published information.

HM Treasury

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