Decision details

York has been allocated £5.1m from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) to implement the investment plan that was agreed by DLUHC in January 2023. In October 2022, CYC Executive gave delegated authority to the Corporate Director of Place to implement this Investment Plan, in consultation with the relevant Executive Members and the York UKSPF Partnership Board. This delegation was reconfirmed in October 2023 when Executive considered the results of a light touch review of the programme, which included allocating skills funding to the Construction Skills Initiative. Due to the senior management restructure, the decision has been made by the COO who is able to make any decisions that are delegated to any Directors.

Executive considered detailed plans for a Construction Skills Initiative at its February 2024 meeting, noting progress and reiterating their support for the project. In order to implement the project, which was due to commence in April 2024, a call for expressions of interest was made in March 2024 through the Yortender portal. Six expressions of interest were received, and the businesses expressing interest were then invited to submit grant funding applications following the process outlined in the York UKSPF Assurance Framework. The brief for the project split the work into two separate Lots, one focusing on overall project management, the development of the partnership, and supporting CYC to embed new processes to support Employment and Skills plans for major construction projects (£140k), and the second Lot focused on the provision of on-site construction training (£160k). CHY Consultancy submitted the only proposals, scoring 79/100 for Lot 1 and 77/100 for Lot 2, above the threshold score of 70/100 for projects to be fundable for a total value of £299,740.

UKSPF funding must all be spent by the end of the current financial year, when the current programme finishes and any unspent funds must be returned to Government. It is hoped that future equivalent funding will be available to extend and expand the CSI after that date, with the expectation that this would be through the new Mayoral Combined Authority.

Decision: Award £299,740 to CHY Consultancy to deliver the York Construction Skills Initiative.

Option 1: Award funding to CHY Consultancy

Option 2: Reopen the grant competition and seek further applications

Option 3: Do not award funds, cancelling the Construction Skills Initiative

Option 2: As six companies were invited to bid and CHY Consultancy submitted applications of a standard which justify awarding funding, there is no reason to seek further applications.

Option 3: The Executive Member, Executive and the Partnership have supported establishing the CSI and we have compliant bids at the standard required to award funding, so there is no reason not to award.