Recommendation 20

The Department said it had locally-based area teams who knew their local authorities and can provide support across all the funding sources they may be accessing.53 We asked about support for local authorities who were struggling. The Department told us it had a ‘discovery team’ who were working with 25 local authorities who were at risk of missing deadlines to help accelerate delivery,54 for example, by providing support in contracting or in giving their match funding providers confidence to release funding. The Department explained these 25 places were not necessarily those in the most trouble but those that the Department thought it could make the most difference and move delivery along.55