Attendees
Melanie Sealey (Chair), Keir Duffin, Iain Masters, Neil Blaney, Richard Marsh, Tim Child, Jamie Hulland, Heather Hillman, Sarah Jane Mackenzie-Shapland, Alex Lessware, Dominie Dunbrook, Andrew Wood, Dan James, Chris Fuller, Antonio Tucker, Chris Shears, Adrian Welsh, Liz Payne, Neil Blaney, Hannah Dixon (minutes)
Apologies
Ian Collinson, Roger Clotworthy, Josie Gough
1. Heritage Lottery Partner Bid Update
Heritage Lottery sent out an email to say this will be deferred because of the number of bids they have received, we will know 31st January if we have successfully moved to the next round.
ACTION: Keir to send out timeline information if we do get through e.g. how long we have to pull everything together.
2. MHCLG Update
Updated OPE Board on the minister writing to two tier areas and neighbouring unitary authorities on the 16th of December outlining the Government’s intention to begin the process of local government reorganisation. The general guidance to date is that they will consider population sizes as close as possible to 500,000, such that the new structures can be of sufficient scale to achieve efficiencies, improve capacity and withstand financial shocks.
3. UKSPF Discussion
MS and KD meeting with District Council reps to look at plans for 25/26, will collate all information into one shared document to show what will be achieved in totality. All meetings will take place by 30/01, and plans collated between 31/01-05/02. Papers will be submitted for CCA Board on 05/02 and a decision made by 18/02.
4. Update from UKSPF Webinar
MHCLG said that we will be issued with a form to complete, grant determination letter and MOU by April, many in the meeting requested these documents earlier if possible. Currently tables of outputs and outcomes have not been provided. The guidance is that they would be largely the same as before should be a more streamlined version than before.
ACTION: Keir to share the table about this.
5. Multiply/ Essential Skills
The Multiply strand of SPF was managed by Devon and Torbay under a separate arrangement in the previous programme. Feedback is that it is a valuable programme, so CCA wish to see this continue in the 2025-26 programme, subject to formal agreement of the proposals.
ACTION: Nick to send Sarah-Jane the geographical breakdown of where learners are based.
6. Employment Hubs
Connect to Work is a dedicated programme for those people with disabilities, homeless, carers, refugees etc, to help them maintain employment by providing wrap around support including mental health support. DTCCA will be the lead body. This is a 4-year programme. The funding hasn’t yet been confirmed, there are similar timescales to UKSPF.
Hubs are a key part of this delivery piece; the idea is to develop the hub model to support some of the funding.
ACTION: Nick to discuss the options with District’s individually.
7. Prosper
Business support programme where businesses get up to 12 hours of business support. Exeter, East Devon and Mid Devon currently use this. Two options were presented – Option 1 is to continue these arrangements. Option 2 – if more Districts were to take up the offer, then they’d get better value for money. Suppliers are paid by output. We can flex based on the Authority’s requirements.
8. Agri Innovation
Agri Business Support will be terminated after March 2025 and Future Farmers Resilience Programme is also ending, so there will be a significant gap in business support specialised for farmers. DCC proposal is to create a hybrid function to close this gap.
ACTION: HH to follow up with individual District Councils who would like to have a conversation about this and Prosper.
9. Any Other Business/ District Updates – As Required
No additional items were raised during the meeting.
10. Future Meeting Dates
30th April 2025
16th July 2025
22nd October 2025