Guidance: Project Adjustment Requests

All Towns Fund places, whether a recipient of Town Deals or the Future High Streets Fund competition should now use the same form for submitting Project Adjustment Requests (PARs).

The Department has delegated some decision-making on PARs to Town Deal Boards and Local Authorities. This allows places to modify the agreed spend, outputs and outcomes against any project by up to 30% without requiring formal clearance from the Department.

HOWEVER:

• The PAR Form linked below must still be submitted for every change request.

• The Department must confirm whether each PAR is delegated or not.

• All interventions must still meet Towns Fund value for money requirements.

We have also publicly committed to a 20 working-day turnaround for any PAR decisions that are not delegated to get projects off the ground and allow for a quicker response to any delivery issues. All PAR Forms should be submitted to [email protected] CC’ing in your dedicated Cities and Local Growth Unit Area Lead for information.

Monitoring and Evaluation: Expanded Outcome Indicators

This document provides further details on the expanded list of outcome indicators that are included within the Towns Fund performance reporting template.

Grant recipients are encouraged to align their chosen outcomes with the indicators in this document where possible, but this is not mandatory.

The more places that align with the outcome indicators in this document, the greater the consistency across the programme, and the more useful the data will be for evaluation purposes.

Guidance: The Future of Town Deal Boards

The Town Deal Boards: Supplementary Guidance document sets out DLUHC’s expectations for Town Deal Boards as places move into the delivery of Town Deal projects. Please note this guidance is supplementary to existing guidance, and sets out DLUHC’s expectations regarding the Board’s specific role in:

• Performance reviews

• Project Adjustment Requests

• Assurance activity

It also reiterates the key strategic and consultative role of the Town Deal Board. As per the Levelling Up Funds Local Authority Assurance Framework (September 2022), checks will be carried out annually on publicly available records to review whether each Town Deal Board is working in line with its governance. This governance includes the information provision requirements set out in the original prospectus and all subsequent guidance including this supplementary guidance.

Please see the full gov.uk article which links to all previous Town Deal Board guidance here.

Monitoring and Evaluation: Performance Reporting Tutorial

The tutorial below provides a walkthrough for completion of the Towns Fund reporting template.

Monitoring & Evaluation: Performance Reporting Guidance

This guidance document details the monitoring and reporting process for grant recipients

Monitoring and Evaluation: Performance Reporting Template

DLUHC is required to carry out Performance and Assurance Reviews of any previous payments to places before releasing further funding. All Towns Fund places are required to formally report on their performance twice a year as per the Towns Fund Monitoring and Evaluation Framework

• The current deadline for all Town Deal and FHSF recipients to submit their latest 6-month Performance Return is the 4th of December 2023.

• Early completion and submission of this template will be particularly helpful where an early decision on a FHSF extension is required. 

• Your latest Performance Return should report on all activity between 1st April 2023 and 30th September 2023.

• All resources are linked below, please thoroughly read the latest commissioning email for an overview of any updates to the process.

Guidance: Stage 2 Business Case Documentation, Templates and M&E Indicators

Towns are required to develop a Business Case for each project and submit summary documentation to DLUHC. This guidance covers the development and appraisal of Business Cases for Town Deals, and other requirements related to project development and submission of a Summary Document.

• Annex A: Project Confirmation Table needs to be approved and signed off by both the Town Deal Board Chair and the accountable body’s Chief Executive or the s151 officer before being submitted.

• Annex A1: Financial Profile should be completed to clarify the indicative financial profile of your Town and submitted to DLUHC when confirming projects, two months after receiving Heads of Terms

• Annex C: Summary Document template must be completed and submitted to DLUHC for each project, as soon as they are ready and within 12 months of agreeing Heads of Terms.

• Annex 2: M&E Plan template must be completed and submitted to DLUHC for each project, as soon as they are ready and within 12 months of agreeing Heads of Terms.

NB: Stage 2 ‘Business Case Development’ is now complete and all Town Deals are now in Delivery. Town Deal recipients were required to submit their business case documentation to the Department by the 31st of March 2023. All business case documentation was signed off by the Department by the 31st of July 2023. See the historic resources linked below for reference:

Monitoring and Evaluation: Towns Fund M&E Strategy

This document details DLUHC's approach to the monitoring and evaluation of the Towns Fund (which encompasses both the Town Deals and the Future High Streets Fund) and is intended to inform the public and stakeholders of the rationale behind the evaluation and the eventual outputs it will produce.

The aim of this document is to set out a strategy that provides a set of activities, methodologies and evaluation approaches that can help us better understand what works and why, thereby supporting the implementation future local growth and regeneration interventions.

Published 2 December 2021

Monitoring and Evaluation: Indicators Tutorial

In advance of the Towns Fund October-November reporting period opening, a teach-in was held to discuss the mandatory and project-specific indicators. The aim of this teach-in was to raise awareness that each project needed all relevant project-specific indicators to be allotted to it ahead of the reporting period opening.

A recording of the webinar is below.

FAQs: Stage 2 Business Case Development

DLUHC published 16 new FAQs on 6th July 2021, relating to Stage 2 of the Towns Fund programme. These cover key questions on project prioritisation, business case submission, assurance, finance and revenue funding.

Please click download below to view these new FAQs.

Monitoring and Evaluation: Theory of Change and M&E Framework

This document sets out the M&E requirements of both the Towns Deals and Future High Street Fund, by DLUHC. It details their mandatory reporting requirements for the funds, the frequency of when we expect this to be collected and how you should do.

Guidance: Town Investment Plans

Guidance issued by MHCLG on 9th July 2020, on the Town Investment Plan Template

FAQs: Further Guidance

FAQs relating to the Towns Fund programme, issued by MHCLG on 16 July 2020.