Recommendation 10

We challenged the Department about whether allowing local authorities to extend the deadline to spend government funds for all projects in the Future High Street Fund and Rounds 1 and 2 of the Levelling Up Fund was a sign that there was a problem with how the funds were set up. It told us that the early years of the projects were very seriously affected by inflation and supply chain issues, as well as the impact of the pandemic but its spending was now more aligned to its budgets than in the earlier years of the funds.25 The changing application process