Recommendation 19

For each competitive fund available for high streets, the Government should publish the full list of local authorities whose bids were unsuccessful in each round. For future rounds of bidding for these funds, the Government should consider requiring local authorities to state how much it cost them to put the bid together—whether using their own resources or capacity funding provided by the Government—and publish these amounts, to provide greater transparency about value for money. The Government should undertake a cost-benefit analysis of the bidding process to identify which local authorities do not have the resources to draft bids. This analysis should show the geographical applications and success of bids.

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