Investment Planning

Chair: Paul Jagger MBE

Members: Cllr Brian Cleasby, Cllr Carl Lis, Michael Oughtred, Tony Cherry, Sarah Tyler

The Investment Planning scrutiny review was carried out between June 2008 and February 2009. The review considered two major themes: how successfully partners have been engaged in the development of the Sub-regional Investment Plans, and to what extent Investment Planning has led to change in the sub-regions; and what lessons need to be learned from the current Investment Planning process as it is taken forward in the form of Geographic Programming in the future.

Over 40 organisations engaged with this review either by writing, attending events, being interviewed by the consultants or emailing online, and we would like to thank everyone for contributing their views and comments.

Conclusions

The Scrutiny Board has concluded from this scrutiny review that Investment Planning has allowed highly valued and inclusive partnerships to be formed in the sub-regions. It also applauds Yorkshire Forward's decision to award five year budget allocations under each Sub-regional Investment plan, as this provided some financial assurance to partners.

However, while the Scrutiny Board welcomes Yorkshire Forward's intentions to continually improve the Investment Planning process, it concluded that this had led to an unsettled state of arrangements in terms of the transition from Investment Planning to Geographic Programmes.

The Scrutiny Board has also identified that Yorkshire Foward's decisions to approve and reject projects under Investment Planning were not as transparent as they should have been, and steps need to be taken to improve this.

Finally, the Scrutiny Board has identified that the collection, analysis and dissemination of output and outcome data is fundamentally important to the region, and that this must be improved in future.

The Scrutiny Board mad seven recommendations in the report as follows:

• Yorkshire Forward should future review the Performance Management Framework and process and work more closely with project sponsors on developing project proposals. Yorkshire Forward should also demonstrate how they will improve the quality of feedback that they give to sponsors throughout the PMF process.
• Yorkshire Forward should undertake a formal evaluation of the activities funded through Sub-regional Investment Planning, to assess the impact that the activities have had on the sub-regional economies. This should link to the findings from the evaluation of the European Structural Funds Programme for 2000 to 2006.
• Yorkshire Forward should clearly communicate how the Geographic Programmes will work, when they will be developed, when the Programmes will commence delivery, and when the transition from Investment Planning will be fully completed to dispel confusion.
• Yorkshire Forward and the local authorities should identify and agree a mechanism that will be used to regularly collect performance management output and outcome data from the activities delivered under Geographic Programmes. The data collected should be analysed by Yorkshire Forward at the end of each year, to identify the successes, good practice and learning points from Geographic Programmes so that this information can be disseminated across the region and quickly applied.
• Yorkshire Forward and local authorities should work proactively to ensure strong partner engagement in the development and delivery of the Geographic Programmes.
• Yorkshire Forward should continue to work with Government departments, national agencies and other regional organisations, to identify where national and regional funding and priorities , including Regional Funding Allocation, can contribute to regional, sub-regional, city regional and local objectives.
• Yorkshire Forward should provide local authorities with the advice and expertise of its staff where local authorities require assistance.

The Full report and Executive Summary is available to download below.