Stage 2 Support Offer

As the Towns Fund Delivery Partner, we are working to support you in developing robust and considered Business Cases and projects that will help you achieve positive change in your Town. Your Town Coordinator will work with you to guide you through the resources available and ensure you can access appropriate support throughout each stage of the Towns Fund process. This document summarises what is on offer during Stage 2 up to October 2021.

A recording of the recent Town Resource Showcase webinar can also be found on the website.

This document was updated on 4th August 2021.

Project Initiation Document template

A Project Initiation Document can help you to mitigate risks as you progress towards the project initiation stage. It will also create a good foundation from which to develop a business case. The purpose of a Project Initiation Document (sometimes called a “PID”) is to record basic, but important, information to better define the project.

TFDP have developed this Project Initiation Document template, which clearly sets out what to capture in each section.

Please see our blog for further details of the benefits of Project Initiation Documents. If you have any questions about how to use the template, please contact your Town Coordinator.

Board Report Template

As Boards evolve into their new responsibilities in the Business Case development stage, they will need to be kept informed of progress being made, have visibility of risks and be able to focus on the issues and decisions which need their steer. Putting in place a standard Board Report, which covers the key headlines, gives assurance to Board members and enables the precious time that they have to be focused on the key matters at hand.

We have developed a simple, editable Board Report template which you can use to ensure that your Board stays sighted on the information which is most important for them to see.

We have provided the template in both excel and word format. The excel template has a tab with instructions, and you can also download instructions on how to use the word template below.

Please read our accompanying blog to further understand the benefits of using this template.

Engaging with hard to reach groups

Hard to reach or seldom heard groups are defined as people that are typically under-represented in the planning or development process, or in wider public life.

This could include ethnic or language minorities, people with disabilities, young people, the elderly, people with low literacy levels and people who simply don’t think their participation will make a difference as their voice will not be heard. These groups may be difficult to engage with because they do not feel empowered to do so, or due to barriers which can be overcome.

This guide seeks to help Towns in engaging with such groups.

Updates to TAG

The Department for Transport (DfT) recently announced forthcoming changes to the Transport Appraisal Guidance (TAG) to be published officially in the guidance in July 2021. These include changes to:

• Optimism Bias

• Appraisal period and residual values

• Capturing Local context

• Uncertainty toolkit

• Landscape monetisation guidance

This document provides an overview of the key updates to DfT’s Transport Appraisal Guidance (TAG). These changes should be considered by towns appraising transport projects, especially the Economic Case.

Building a strong brand for your Town Deal

A Town Investment Plan (TIP) is more than just a bid document to unlock investment in selected projects. Good TIPs set out a clear and compelling vision for the Town’s future which stakeholders and the public feel they have helped to shape and can buy into going forward.

This guidance considers how Towns can take the contents of their TIP and turn it into a narrative and brand identity under which component projects become more than just the sum of their parts.

So don’t let your TIP sit on a shelf gathering dust. Put it to work as you move through Stage 2 and on towards project delivery.

We’ve created this interactive toolkit to help you build an action plan for your next steps. You can fill this in online or print out and brainstorm with your team.

Distributional and place-based analysis

As you progress the Business Case for each of your projects, the Economic Case will provide an assessment of the overall value for money of each project through its Benefit/Cost Ratio (BCR).

However, an overall BCR alone does not demonstrate how the impacts of the project could vary between different groups – for instance, people in different income bands or people of different ages or spatial areas.

The revised Green Book, published in November 2020, set out a requirement to identify the potential distributional impacts on different groups of people, and to produce place-based analysis for proposals with a geographical defined focus. The Delivery Partner produced a blog and guide on the revisions to the Green Book.

This guide goes into more detail about the questions that Towns should consider in approaching the distributional analysis required. It also identifies the place based analysis that can be applied where appropriate, with signposting to relevant guidance documents.

Economic Case: Best Practice Annex A - Active Travel

This short guide is supplementary to the Economic Case: Best Practice Guide, and provides additional information on how to quantify and monetise economic benefits related to active travel projects, primarily projects designed to incentivise, facilitate and/or increase cycling and walking levels within a defined study area.

The step-by-step guide on estimating economic benefits covers:

• Tools and resources

• Identifying economic benefits

• How to calculate economic benefits

• Key considerations

Economic Case: Best Practice Guide

This guidance is relevant for assisting Towns in developing compliant and effective Business Cases. The document will provide Towns with general guidance for producing the Economic Case, from the approach to the Economic Case, to the Value for Money assessment.

Accompanying this guidance, TFDP will be issuing separate supplementary annexes on how to quantify benefits by project types. The supplementary guidance will outline the potential benefits to consider, the relevant Green Book or appraisal guidance to comply with, quantification of benefits methodology, data requirements and more.

Links to these annexes will be added to this page, as they are made available.

• Annex A: Active Travel

• Annex B: Development and Land Value Uplift

• Annex C: Culture and Heritage

Maximising Value for Money through Social Value

The recent publication of the new Green Book and the Government's Social Value in Procurement Policy note signals an increasing focus is on the wider strategic benefits of public investment, and we hope this will be a useful guide to understand how to incorporate it in your business cases.

By looking at your projects through the lens of social value, you will be better able to describe the wider economic and social benefits that they can result in for your communities. Whilst this won’t entirely replace the traditional economic appraisal, it will help to explore and uncover some of the less quantifiable elements of your projects, which are never-the-less important .

The purpose of this document is to show practical ways to include social value in your projects and Business Cases to increase the Value for Money.

Meeting the Public Sector Equality Duty

The Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) is an important part of all decision making for the public sector, and the Towns Fund is no exception. All public bodies, including local authorities, have a duty to consider how their policies or decisions affect the nine ‘protected characteristics’ under the Equality Act 2010.

There are no additional or specific Towns Fund requirements for the PSED. However, in order to make it easier to ensure that the PSED is considered and discharged, we have developed an optional assessment format which can be used as a framework for the PSED process and can be tailored to reflect local circumstances. The format includes separate assessments at project level and at the programme level, and it is important that impacts are considered in the round across the suite of projects proposed in your Town Investment Plan. (For example, there may be a more significant cumulative impact on a protected characteristic than when considered simply on a project-by-project basis).

We have included the Family Test in this optional assessment format. Whilst the Family Test only applies to government departments and not local authorities, you may choose to consider it alongside the protected characteristics.

As well as simply discharging the PSED for its own sake, assessing how projects and the wider programme impact on different groups of people is a valuable exercise in making sure that the Towns Fund investment benefits all and is as successful as possible. Following your assessment, there may be a need for further actions, including changing aspects of the projects or even re-prioritising projects. It is therefore doubly important that equalities and the PSED are robustly and proportionately considered.

Please speak to your Town Coordinator if you would like further support on what the PSED means for your Town.

Project Management Good Practice

This guide is intended to introduce Towns to the basics of project management, and provide high level advice on the different elements of successful project management.

It sets out current best, or good practice that may be appropriate for Towns.

• It can be used in the development of business cases

• It can be used to develop the plans and ways of working

• It will help you get your projects off to the best start

The guide also includes links to additional resources, such as guides, templates and good practice.

If you would benefit from more detailed support on any of the topics covered within this guidance you can book a one-to-one meeting with Alistair Godbold, our Project and Programme Management expert, using the Expert Drop-in Hour service.

Successfully Partnering for Health and Wellbeing Projects

To effectively deliver Health and Wellbeing projects many Towns will need to seek out partnerships with others. This guidance document aims to assist Towns in understanding the typical local partners that can be drawn upon to enhance their Business Cases for Health and Wellbeing projects.

The guide provides an overview of the different types of partners, and uses real-life case studies to showcase the benefits of partnering.

If you would like to discuss the contents of this guide further with our Health and Wellbeing Experts, please book in a meeting using the Expert Drop-in Hour service.

Project Re-Prioritisation Tool

In some cases, Towns have received a lower offer than they had asked for, and as such decisions need to be made around which projects should be taken forward to the Business Case stage. This tool has been developed to help you to re-consider your projects, in light of your Heads of Terms (HOT) offer of funding.

A short tutorial video can be found below, explaining how to use the tool, but if you have any further questions please contact your Town Coordinator.

Update: Version 4 added 13/05/21

Translating your TIP into the Strategic Case

This Guide will help Towns work out how best to translate their Town Investment Plan into the strategic case of their project business cases.

The aim of the strategic case is to demonstrate the rationale for investment and outline options for investment. It has become an even more important part of the business case in the latest Government Green Book review.

The Town Investment Plan already sets out the strategic case and vision for the town which is directly relevant to project business cases. However, there is only one TIP and multiple business cases, so how can the former support the latter?

Addressing your Planning, EIA and HRA needs in your business case

The purpose of this document is to provide additional guidance in relation to addressing planning, Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Habitats Regulations Assessment (HRA) needs within your Towns Fund business case. This document supplements the Introduction to Business Cases provided by the TFDP (here).

This document provides an overview of some of the key actions associated with planning, EIA and HRA processes and outcomes that you should consider when preparing your business case.

Re:Imagining Retail

The accelerated evolution of retail is extraordinary. In 2020 we saw a shift in consumer behaviour like never before. These trends were already advancing, but too often ignored.

Re:Imagining Retail is a cross-sector collaboration of insights from Savills and peers from across the landlord, developer, planning and design space. In this publication, Savills have examined thought leadership and case studies through the lens of sustainable uses, sustainable repurposing, sustainable masterplanning, and sustainable funding and policy.

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We are currently curating a series of blogs which explain the research paper in more detail, links for which can be found below:

• Making the case for repurposing our town centres

• Repurposing town centres to sustainabe uses

How to account for COVID-19 in your baseline

In developing a robust Business Case it is important to consider how COVID-19 has impacted your Town and how best to capture this in your baseline. The purpose of this resource is to assist in this process.

Within this spreadsheet we have brought together a selection of key COVID-19 datasets that can be used to understand the impact of COVID-19 on your area. Please note that in most cases this data relates to the local authority level. There will of course be a number of other datasets that will need to form the baseline for your business case. These datasets have not been included here as timing means that will not yet reflect the impact of COVID-19 on your town.

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How to use

The 'COVID-19 data resources' spreadsheet provides links to the data source along with supporting information on the data and suggestions on how it could be used in the Business Case. Information provided includes:

• Theme: Overarching theme relating to Social, Economic, or Other

• Source: Name of data source

• Data: Type of data/indicators provided by this source

• Publisher: Publisher of the data source

• Frequency: How often the data is published

• Spatial level: Lowest spatial level that the data is available at

• Use: How the data can be used

• Application to business case: Why the data is relevant to your Business Case and suggestions on how it could be used

• Link: Hyperlink to the source of data

• Notes: Any additional instructions on how to access from the data from the link

Road to Delivery: Planning & EIA requirements

The purpose of this Briefing Pack is to set out some of the planning and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) considerations that you might face during development of your business case and whilst progressing your projects. Projects may interface with the planning system and EIA requirements in different ways, and it will be important to understand what might be required to deliver such projects.  

The Briefing Pack is intended to provide an introduction to these issues to Town Deal Board members and local authority officers who do not have a background in planning and EIA. Please speak to your Town Coordinator if you believe you require further support, including bespoke advice on planning and EIA strategies. Advice can also be sought from your local planning authority.

Stakeholder Engagement to support Business Cases

This guide provides information to help support you when developing your Business Cases. It outlines the process in more detail, the key role of engagement and includes examples of what a strong Business Case should look like.

The guidance is summarised by the image below, showing the Eight Simple Steps to building stakeholder engagement into the development of your Stage 2 Business Case.