Decision details

York has been allocated £5.1m from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund to deliver an agreed Investment Plan submitted in August 2022 and approved by Government in January 2023. £85k of that funding was allocated to Intervention E35 to deliver a project to support confidence building through volunteering. The Archaeology on Prescription project, previously funded through the Community Renewal Fund, has been selected to deliver that project through a grant competition, with the support of the York UKSPF Partnership Board.

At its meeting on 12th October 2023, CYC Executive agreed that the revised investment plan is implemented by extending the current delegation to the Corporate Director of Place in consultation with the Executive Member for Economy and Transport and taking advice the York SPF Partnership Board.

In order to implement this part of the Investment Plan, a decision is required to formally allocate £85k to York Archaeological Trust from the 2024-2025 York UKSPF budget.

This project uses volunteering on archaeological excavations to help people who are unemployed to build confidence and soft skills that will help them reengage with the world of work.

This funding under E35 is to deliver a project to link volunteering with confidence building and bring people closer to work. The Partnership Board recommend approval of YAT’s application and this also has the support of the Executive Member. This decision is now needed to make the allocation formal and enable a funding agreement to be put in place with York Archaeological Trust to enable delivery from 1 April 2024 onwards.

The project is outside of the scope of the Fieldwork Framework that is in place between CYC and York Archaeology as it relates to the Charitable Aims of YAT rather than being part of the commercial fieldwork arm of the organisation. In the Framework, project management costs for fieldwork are covered in the margin on the day rates for fieldwork staff. In the costings for AoP, which is a very different kind of project, we have included the actual salary + on-costs of the full-time Project Manager with no margin, and then the additional costs for equipment etc as separate items. The bulk of the fieldwork and post-excavation team on the project are volunteers – the very people that the project is set up to support. If costed on the basis of the Framework, YAT would receive approximately £168k rather than the £85k that has been agreed on this grant-funded basis.

Decision:
To commission York Archaeological Trust to deliver the Archaeology on Prescription project in 2024/25 and allocate £85k from the York UKSPF Investment Plan (intervention E35) to the work.

Two options have been considered:
• Option 1: reject the application
• Option 2: support the recommendation of the Partnership Board and award the funding to York Archaeological Trust

Options Rejected:
Option 1: reject the application: the application scored 81/100 in appraisal and the project has a successful track record of delivery through the Government’s Community Renewal Fund.