Agenda item

HJ confirmed that as part of the annual assurance and performance management for

Town Deal Sefton Council as Accountable Body are required to submit 6-monthly

monitoring and evaluation returns to DLUHC. This is in addition to the annual assurance

process on governance, transparency and management of Town Deal funding. Details

are provided in the Levelling Up Funds Local Authority Assurance Framework Guidance

that apply to the Towns Deal projects as well as Levelling Up funded projects. Key

themes such as procurement, conflict of interest, subsidy control, counter fraud and risk

management are all monitored.

Sefton Council, as the accountable body are required to submit bi-annual Monitoring

and Evaluation returns. This provides an update on the overall programme performance,

funding profiles, milestones, project outputs and outcomes and key risks.

In terms of Governance and transparency we are sharing the draft M&E plan with board

members in good time of the submission due early next month.

June return

CW provided an overview of the completed draft return.

The M&E return template remains largely unchanged from the last submission in

December. Working through each tab, Board members were given the opportunity to

comment and raise queries on the draft response. Most of the workbook uses a RAG

rated scoring to ensure all parts are completed.

1. Reporting Period. This return is for the period 1 October 2022 to 31st March 2023.

2. Project Admin. Up to date key personnel and project data inputted.

3. Programme Progress. Cells in the worksheet are protected so we are unable to reformat the cells to wrap text or alter the sizing to view all the text in this window. We have provided a programme wide progress summary in Section A and more detailed Project progress summary for each of the projects in Section B. New cells in this section refer to the PAR status. New guidance has been issued and PARs are only required if the expenditure totals and/or outputs vary. As our projects are on track or reprofiled to take account of programme changes, they do not require a PAR.

4a. Funding Profiles. Section B1 data is in line with previous submissions, detailing the CDEL prepayment, Capacity Funding and Accelerated Funding. Section C is slightly different to

previous reporting templates as the CDEL payment is now excluded from the project CDEL amounts. Comments have been provided in the relevant sections. As MLEC received Business Case approval in December, we are now required to complete all this worksheet including Other Funding Sources.

4b. Public Sector Investment (PSI). This is a new tab, which autocompletes from the previous

4a tab. Here we would list any Private Sector Investment Requirements and amount of which has been secured if applicable.

5. Project Outputs. The proposed project outputs have been inputted as forecast figures for each of the projects.

6. Outcomes There are no specific outcomes included in the separate

project agreements to record.

7. Risk Registers The top 3 risks at programme level and for each project have been recorded. They have been updated in line with project progress, identifying where risks can be mitigated or managed, reducing the residual risk.

8. Review. With the board having had sight of the performance return and opportunity to feed into them, this can be signed off by the Section 151 Officer / Chief Finance Officer and Town Board Chair.

The deadline for return of the Monitoring and Evaluation plan is 9th June 2023.

Action: To consult with the chair and S151 Officer to finalise the return in preparation

of the submission to DLUHC by the 9th of June deadline.