Welcome from the Towns Fund Delivery Partner Central Team
June and July have been a busy two months for the Towns Fund Delivery Partner team. Almost all 100 towns have met with their Town Coordinator – your key point of contact throughout the development of your Town Investment Plan and subsequent business case(s). While your Town Coordinator is the main face you will see from our team, the central team wanted to take this opportunity to give you a bit of insight into how we hope to work with you over the coming months.
We have already been providing support to Cohort 1 towns ahead of their TIP submissions by 31 July, acting as a ‘critical friend’ (via our wide range of experts) to ensure each town is submitting the best TIP possible.
Through this process, and the initial conversations we are having with Cohort 2 & 3 Towns, we are learning as much about you, your Town Deal Boards, and your TIP proposals as possible. Understanding your plans and your needs for technical assistance via your Town Coordinators is critical to delivering our role as your Delivery Partner. We are listening to you, and we are shaping our Delivery Partner role around how you want to engage with us.
We recognise that there are some areas in which almost every town will need some support, advice or guidance, for example good practice community engagement during COVID-19 or developing a vision for your town. These ‘foundational’ areas are our focus right now. We are working with experts to develop content for this website as well as scheduling in LiveStreams and Webinars to discuss the fundamental and most pressing questions and challenges you have. New content and events are coming from early August.
We are also identifying key trends—such as needing assistance to incorporate clean growth principles in your TIP or how to start approaching potential private sector investors—and are lining up teams of experts to develop ‘bespoke’ resources for you. Where there are towns with common challenges, we are going to develop shared tools and webinars for you to engage with both our experts and with one another.
Lastly, where you have a particularly unique or significant need for technical assistance, your Town Coordinator can submit a service request to put you in touch with a 1-2-1 ‘targeted’ advisory team. This team will work with you to ensure you are developing a good practice approach in your TIP. These resources are reserved for your most pressing needs to ensure every town has access to the expert advice they require and to encourage more collaboration among the towns on areas of common interest.
Our aims are twofold: first, to help you deliver a high-quality TIP and business case, and second, to work alongside you, develop tools and share expertise that will help you better deliver for programmes in the future.
A key benefit of working with 100 towns is that we can learn from each place, identify common themes, and share resources with one another. Since this Towns Fund is not a competitive process, we are hoping to engender a spirit of collaboration and engagement, so every town gets more from our role as Delivery Partner.
We are looking forward to working more with you as we begin engagement with Cohorts 2 and 3 in earnest. Please continue to engage with your Town Coordinator to discuss areas where you might need foundational, bespoke, or targeted support.