Recommendation 7

The Department sought to fund ‘shovel-ready’ projects in both the Towns Fund and Levelling Up Fund. The Department told us the latest figures across Rounds 1 and 2 of the Levelling Up Fund show that 284 out of 308 projects have commenced. For the Future High Streets Fund, it is 185 out of the 242 and for the Town Deals, it is 488 out of the 604 projects.9 We challenged the Department on its use of different terms for the status of projects. The Department told us that its use of the term ‘underway’ means a local authority has started to spend the government funding they have been given under these funds and could include, for example, activities such as feasibility studies, seeking planning permission, land acquisition, paying for design fees or site preparation.10 We were also concerned to see that 19 projects under the Future High Streets Fund had been paused. The Department told us it would be in discussion with those local authorities about how to progress the projects.11 By 31 March 2023 local authorities and other organisations had completed 64 projects across these funds.12 We asked for three examples of projects that had delivered change. We felt the examples the Department gave us were, while important to their localities, relatively small scale compared to the substantial and convincing examples we would have expected the Department to have readily available at this stage.13 Projects behind schedule