Presented at the West Midlands Economic Forum event on 'Financial Flows'

1. West Midlands European Funds
2014-2020
Patrick Willcocks
European and Urban Affairs Adviser
March 28th 2014

2. Funds Coming to the Region –
Comparison to 2007-2013
2007-13 2014-2020 % Change
ERDF €400m €473m 18%+
ESF €372m €440m 18%+
TOTAL €772m €913M 18%+
These Figures exclude the Youth Employment Initiative
and EAFRD

4. Initial Allocations
BIS July 2013

5. Youth Employment Initiative
Greater Birmingham and Solihull, the Black Country, and Coventry and
Warwickshire LEPs are accessing extra ESF resources to tackle youth
unemployment under the Youth Employment Initiative for 2014 and 2015
£19.3m
£4.1m
£19.0m

6. Total Including YEI plus EAFRD
YEI
19.3
4.1
19.0
EAFRD
0
2.7
1.1
7.5
3.1
2.2
TOTAL
171.2
123.2
239.1
104.9
141.5
61.4
841.3

7. Focus
EU is driving a focussed approach to investment
Under ERDF at least 80% * of funds need to be spent on
• Innovation
• Business Competitiveness
• Low Carbon (must be at least 20%**)
• Digital/ICT
Under ESF – it is easier now to spend money on intermediate
and high level skills
* 60% (**and 15%) in Transition regions (such as SSLEP and parts of
GBSLEP)

8. Delivery Arrangements
• Proposed that LEPs will be the key agencies – hence the
LEP strategies – submitted in January 2014
• Business process model has been discussed with LEPs
• Local Growth teams will work with LEPs
• LEPs will chose projects which will then be assessed by
Local Growth teams
• In England there will be national ERDF and ESF
programmes (previously only ESF was national)
• National Growth Programme Board (Monitoring
Committee) plus sub committees will steer the
programmes

9. Joint working
It is recognised in some circumstance LEPs need to
work together. The WM LEPs have initially agreed to
two areas where they will work collectively
• Establishing an Access to Finance fund for the West
Midlands – worth circa £125m (£50m ERDF)
• On Innovation where a joint approach (called Smart
Specialisation) will be undertaken for the Advanced
Manufacturing Sector – detailed strategy work
• They are also talking about Business Support/Growth
Hubs collaboration

10. Timetable
• Draft Partnership Agreement and Draft Operational
programmes have/are being written.
• These need to be agreed with the European
Commission
• HMG will consult on the draft Operational programmes
• Timetable slipping because EU has a problem with the
LEPs and because
• Legal Challenge to allocations from Liverpool and
Sheffield
• Hoping to have the programmes up and running by
December 2014

11. Benefits
• More localised focus than previously
• LEPs have made different choices – GBSLEP for
instance seeking to put more into low carbon than
required – other LEPs gone for the minimum %
• LEPs have chosen different business sectors to
focus on – although obviously some overlap
• LEPs (and projects) can work with any other part of
England and in the rest of the EU*
* 15% of funds can be spent outside the England

12. Benefits

13. Issues
• Disagreement with the EU over status of the
LEPs
• How much control will LEPs actually have?
• Potentially difficult for projects seeking to
target the West Midlands as will need to deal
with 6 LEPs
• Capacity of the LEPs to deliver – will need
funding support from the funds
• Overlap LEPs are talking about protocols

14. Thank you
Any Questions
These strategies can be accessed from the
LEPs’ websites or www.urbanpivot.com
patrick1willcocks@gmail.com